California significantly rolls back county reopening plans amid ‘unprecedented’ COVID-19 surge

Experiencing a ballooning of COVID-19 cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced that he was pulling an “emergency brake” to slow the spread of the virus, forcing the vast majority of California to return back to the state’s most restrictive tier in its reopening plan.

When the changes go into effect on Tuesday, 41 counties — where 94% of Californians live — will now be placed under the state’s purple tier restrictions — up from just 13 of the state’s 58 counties last week. The move from the state’s red tier down to the most-restrictive purple tier will completely shutter indoor dining, gyms, movie theaters and places of worship in those counties.

In the Bay Area, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Napa and Solano counties will revert to the purple tier, while San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties will move back into the red tier, the second-most restrictive.

The governor also added that officials were assessing the possibility of a future curfew order.

“In nearly every part of the state we are seeing case rates increase and transmission rates increase. No longer is it concentrated in a handful of counties,” Newsom said during a news briefing Monday. “We are seeing community spread broadly across the entire state.”

California joins a growing number of states, including Michigan, Oregon and Washington, imposing new public health orders and lockdowns to clamp down on the spread of the virus as case numbers soar and the country heads into the winter holiday season.

Newsom said officials in California were “sounding the alarm” due to an unprecedented uptick in COVID-19 cases. “California is experiencing the fastest increase in cases we have seen yet — faster than what we experienced at the outset of the pandemic or even this summer,” he said.

As of Monday, more than 1 million cases have been confirmed across California and more than 18,200 people have died as a result. In the past two weeks, the average number of cases reported each day has nearly doubled — a 91% increase from about 4,162 per day at the start of November — and the number of patients hospitalized has increased by nearly 50%. The percentage of COVID-19 tests returning positive results has increased from 3.2% to 4.6% over the past two weeks, according to state data.

The number of patients hospitalized due to the virus has grown to more than 3,800 while the number of new cases has reached its highest point since Aug. 17, an average of about 7,967 per day over the past week, according to data compiled by this news organization.

“The data we are seeing is very concerning,” said California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly. “We are in the midst of a surge and time is of the essence. Every day matters and every decision matters.”

George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco, called the acceleration in new cases “scary stuff,” as it will lead to an uptick in hospitalization and deaths in the coming weeks.

“We don’t have a lot of cards to play after this,” Rutherford said. “When we have more hospitalizations, that becomes a problem because people might not be able to get into the hospitals with treatable conditions.

“And it’s a big deal to get squeezed out of hospital beds because it leads to a mortality beyond that directly caused by COVID.”

The governor’s announcement comes less than two weeks before Thanksgiving — a holiday traditionally marked by large gatherings that officials fear could accelerate the spread of the virus if celebrated as usual. California officials are urging those who travel out of the state for the holiday later this month to self-quarantine for 14 days upon their return though it is a recommendation rather than an outright travel ban.

Officials are also instructing Californians who do attend any gatherings over the holiday weekend to keep it short, wear a mask at all times and remain outdoors.

During a news conference Monday, San Francisco’s top health official Grant Colfax added that residents should “not use testing to determine whether you can travel or not.”

“We have seen the repeated failure of this type of testing strategy, including in Washington, D.C.,” Colfax said. “… People who harbor the virus can still test negative early on in their infection.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/11/16/gov-newsom-puts-nearly-all-of-california-back-into-strictest-reopening-tier/

George Soros buys a stake in big data firm Palantir

Two heavy hitters of the investment world recently bought stakes in Palantir, the secretive and controversial big data firm backed by Peter Thiel that began trading on Wall Street in September.

Soros Fund Management, run by billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, and Third Point, the firm led by occasional activist investor Dan Loeb, both disclosed late Friday that they own shares of Palantir.

Soros Fund Management acquired 18.5 million shares of Palantir while Third Point took a more modest position of 2.4 million shares.

The Soros investment was worth about $175.3 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That works out to a purchase price of $9.50 a share. Palantir's stock is currently trading at just under $16 a share, so the Soros stake is now valued at about $294 million.

Palantir went public through a direct listing of existing stock on the New York Stock Exchange. That means Palantir didn't need to sell new shares through a more traditional initial public offering. It's how Spotify (SPOT) and Slack (WORK) also started trading on Wall Street.

Shares of Palantir have more than doubled from their so-called reference price of $7.25 a share on the day of the direct listing. Palantir is now worth nearly $30 billion.

The company, which has many governmental customers around the world, has been involved in helping track data about the spread of coronavirus as well as the potential distribution of vaccines.

But Palantir has also been controversial due to its relationships with government agencies and the vast trove of data it tracks. That has raised consumer privacy concerns.

The company's Gotham, Foundry and Apollo platforms have been used to help monitor terrorist activity. Big businesses also use Palantir's services to analyze data about weather patterns and consumer purchases.

Palantir was co-founded by Thiel, a venture capitalist who is known for being a member of the "PayPal mafia (PYPL)" that helped launch up the payments giant.

Thiel, who has more conservative political leanings, was also a backer of President Trump in 2016 and is currently a member of Facebook's (FB) board of directors. This makes him a bit of an outlier in the predominantly Democratic-leaning Silicon Valley.

It also makes the Soros investment more interesting given that the investor is known for backing liberal causes.

Up until recently, little was known about Palantir's finances. But before going public the company disclosed that while revenue is surging, it is not yet profitable.

That's common for many so-called unicorns, private startups that command multi-billion dollar valuations. Palantir disclosed promising results for the third quarter last week, the first earnings report since the direct listing.

Palantir said that sales surged 52% to $289.2 million and raised its revenue outlook for the full year. The company also announced it won new contracts with the US Army and National Institutes of Health.

The company did lose a lot of money in the quarter — $853.3 million, in fact.

But Palantir noted that a big portion of its losses was due to $847 million in compensation expenses tied to the direct listing. Excluding that and other expenses tied to the Wall Street debut, Palantir reported a net profit of $73.1 million. Shares soared more than 8% on the news Friday.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/16/investing/palantir-soros-third-point/index.html