Santa Clara County Reports 345 New Coronavirus Cases, 6 Deaths

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — The Santa Clara County Public Health Department reported 345 additional coronavirus cases Thursday.

The latest report brings the countywide case count to 29,631.

The county reported six additional coronavirus-related fatalities Thursday, bringing its COVID-19 death toll to 459.

There were 161 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Santa Clara County as of Thursday, of which 47 were being treated in intensive care units.

Elsewhere in the Bay Area and beyond, four San Francisco supervisors on Thursday announced a plan to introduce legislation to keep the city's shelter-in-place hotels open for more than 2,300 vulnerable homeless residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposed legislation is in response to an announcement last week by Mayor London Breed and the city's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing that the city would being closing all of the city's 29 SIP hotels in phases and move to re-house all of the residents by June 2021. Under the first phase, 500 residents will be moved from seven hotels by Dec. 21.

The BART Board of Directors voted Thursday to forge ahead with an incentivized retirement program intended to help mend the agency's ailing financial outlook due to the coronavirus pandemic.

By an 8-1 vote, the board elected to offer up to 24 weeks of base pay to full-time employees who are or will be eligible for retirement by March 21, 2021.

By that date, some 1,650 employees will meet the criteria for retirement eligibility, which include being at least 50 years old and being a BART employee for at least five years, according to agency officials.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday a limited stay-at-home order for California that will go into effect Saturday night and last for a month to try to limit the spread of COVID-19.

The order is for counties in the "purple" or most-restrictive tier in the state's Blueprint for a Safer Economy plan and will order all non-essential work and gatherings to stop from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

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There have been 1,077,027 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 18,542 coronavirus-related deaths in California as of Thursday night according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The United States had 11,713,242 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 252,514 coronavirus-related fatalities as of Thursday night.

There have been 56,822,606 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,359,120 deaths reported globally as of Thursday night.

— Bay City News contributed to this report