In his daily address concerning the state's COVID-19 response, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the state had experienced its deadliest day.
According to Newsom, there were 115 deaths in California on Wednesday, a 8.5% increase over the previous day. He also said that though there have been improvements towards meeting the six indicators he laid out in determining when the state is still not where it needs to be. He also reminded residents, that even when the state re-opens, "There is no such thing as re-opening back to normal."
In other announcements, Newsom announced that he had signed an executive order will stop debt collectors from garnishing stimulus funds from California residents. If wages were garnished from the stimulus checks, it will be given back retroactively.
The exceptions to that are those who owed money for child, spousal or victim's support.
In addition, those with student loans will see relief.
Newsom also thanked 16 doctors from California who flew to New York Thursday morning to help out hospitals and health systems in the city. That brings the total number of California doctors in New York to 36. He emphasized that the loss of the doctors will not effect health care systems in the state, and in fact will help as those doctors return with greater knowledge of the effect of the pandemic.
Newsom announced that the federal government is providing 90,000 testing swabs out of 100,000 requested.
From a financial standpoint, Newsom said that the state has paid out almost $4 billion in unemployment insurance since March 15th. And even though the state is behind in the amount paid out to local businesses via the federal PPE program, the state is doing well in regards to the SBA loans.
Statewide, Newsom recommended local businesses to visit COVID19.ca.gov to check out additional programs available to state businesses, including loans for women and minority micro-businesses.
