SPORTS INSIDE:Washington coach Ron Rivera is buoyed by his family in cancer fight. B
CALIFORNIA
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2020::LATIMES.COM/CALIFORNIA
B
Today, a few words of
thanks. To all the
volunteers in Santa
Clarita who have been
delivering meals to the
homes of seniors
throughout the pan-
demic.
“Ever since March,
we’ve had a wonderful
team that has come together, about
100 of them,” said Kevin MacDonald,
director of the Santa Clarita Valley
Senior Center. “I’ve never seen any-
thing like it.”
Thousands of meals are being
distributed this week alone, said
MacDonald, and for Thanksgiving
Day, the local Lions Club is providing
700 meals available for drive-through
pickup at the senior center.
Thanks, as well, to the staff and
volunteers at the Culver City Senior
She’s a big hit with seniors
Glendora High student enriches Zoom social hours
SERENA LIN,17, participates in a weekly one-hour Zoom conference
on a variety of topics with folks at the Pasadena Senior Center.Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles TimesSTEVE LOPEZ
[SeeLopez, B5]Around 8:30 Wednesday
morning, Manuel Padilla
and his two sons, 3-year-old
Levi and 1-year-old Toto,
joined the line at South Gate
High School. With a five-day
holiday weekend ahead,
Padilla has a family to feed —
and although his children
are not yet in school, he
turned to the Los Angeles
school district for help.
As Levi pushed his red
scooter, Toto buried himselfdeeper into his stroller to
hide from the L.A. Unified
food services mascot Café
LA Ray, a superhero with a
beaming sun for a head.
The Padillas were one of
thousands of families that
picked up free grab-and-go
meals the day before
Thanksgiving from 63 sites
across the Los Angeles Uni-
fied School District. From
mid-March, when schools
first shut down amid the co-
ronavirus crisis, to Wednes-
day morning, the district
has given out 82 million freemeals to children and
adults.
No one is turned away as
the nation’s second-largest
school district runs what
Supt. Austin Beutner de-
scribes as the largest such
effort in the nation during
the pandemic.
“To my knowledge, it’s
the largest food relief effort
in our nation’s history, far
and away the largest school-
based relief effort ever in our
nation’s history,” Beutner
said at South Gate High.A WOMANloads free meals into her car at South Gate High School on Wednes-
day. The L.A. school district has given out 82 million meals since mid-March.Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles TimesFood relief ramped up
LAUSD plans 1.5 million meals to last the week
By Arit John[SeeMeals,B4]County looks
to reinvent
juvenile justiceSupervisors take first
steps to transition
from probation to new
Department of Youth
Development. BNo lottery results
Wednesday’s results
were unavailable at
press time. For
current results, go to
latimes.com/lottery.It could be your neigh-
bors, or the man who
brushed past you at the gro-
cery store. Maybe it’s the
last-minute addition to
Thanksgiving dinner, or the
friend who pulled their mask
off next to you at the gym.
Throughout Los Angeles,
COVID-19 is closer than ever.
One out of every 145 peo-
ple in L.A. County is cur-
rently infectious with the
disease, according to a mod-
el released by health officials
Wednesday. This is a big
jump from just two months
ago, when the rate was esti-
mated at 1 in 880 Angelenos.
“Our situation is getting
worse each day,” L.A.
County Health Officer Dr.
Muntu Davis said at a press
briefing Wednesday where
the numbers were unveiled.
The county has logged
higher-than-ever cases of
the novel coronavirus this
week, but the latest calcula-
tion suggests the true num-
ber of people ill is even
higher. The county uses a
mathematical model to de-
termine how many people —
diagnosed or not — are ac-
tively contagious with
COVID-19 and may spread it
to others in the community,
based on the number of peo-
ple ending up in the hospital
each day, officials say.
Relying on figures re-
ported through Monday, the
county’s data scientists
found that approximately
0.69% of county residents,
or roughly 69,000 people,
can currently transmit the
coronavirus to others. This
does not include people who
had the virus but are no
longer infectious, nor those
who were so recently in-
fected that they are not yet
contagious.Across the country, epi-
demiologists calculate simi-
lar figures, though the for-
mulas used to reach their es-
timates often differ. Still, the
numbers provide a sense of
how health officials are
thinking about how wide-
spread COVID-19 is in differ-
ent parts of the country
amid an overwhelming win-
ter surge.
In Colorado, officials said
this week that 1 in 41 people
are currently infectious with
COVID-19. Meanwhile, Chi-
cago officials say that as
many as 1 in 15 could be.
Nationwide, 3.6 million
Americans were infectious
with COVID-19 as of Sunday,
which is about 1 in 100 peo-
ple, according to a model
created by Columbia Uni-Contagious
Angelenos
are prevalent
Officials estimate that
1 in 145 people in L.A.
County can spread
the coronavirus.
By Soumya
KarlamanglaTHE COUNTYhas seen record-high cases of the coronavirus this week, but new calculations suggest the true [SeeAngelenos, B6]
number of ill people is even higher. Above, Elizabeth Cameros performs a coronavirus test Monday at LAX.
Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles TimesGov. Gavin
Newsom and
legislative
leaders can be
thankful for
one surprise
holiday gift: a
huge windfall of
tax dollars.
But this is a one-time
present. Sacramento
Democrats should resist the
temptation to quickly spend
the billions on goodies.
Instead, they’d be wise to
sock it away in a sort of
Christmas fund to be
tapped in future years when
state government is ex-
pected to be operating in
the red.
The lawmakers’ chief
nonpartisan policy advisor,
Legislative Analyst Gabriel
Petek, recommends a pru-
dent 50-50 approach: Use
half for rebuilding cash
reserves or paying off inter-
nal debt, and the other half
for one-time expenditures,
such as pandemic relief.
That makes sense if it
can be done without the
governor and legislators
sneaking some bucks into
pet projects.
Petek delivered the
unexpected package of
surplus money last week,
projecting a $26-billion tax
windfall this fiscal year.
This came after Newsom
and the Legislature thought
they were facing a horrific
$54-billion pandemic-in-
duced shortfall when they
adopted the state’s $202-
billion annual budget in
June.CAPITOL JOURNAL
Windfall
for state:
Don’t
spend it
all now
GEORGE SKELTON
in sacramento[SeeSkelton,B5]Thousands could
have power cut
Southern California
Edison warns of planned
shut-offs due to strong
winds and fire danger. BIn non-pandemic times,
Thanksgiving at the Mid-
night Mission shelter can be
quite festive.
There’s a street carnival
with bands playing, volun-
teers scurrying about and
enough turkey to put some-
one in a coma.
Often as many as 2,
people show up along with
400 volunteers.
Not this year.
The homeless shelter has
drastically scaled down its
program for fear of under-
mining the progress it has
made keeping COVID-
from sweeping through its
dormitories. Only a handful
of residents and employees
have tested positive since
the virus arrived in Los An-
geles and caused much of
the city to lock down —
which complicated how the
shelter helps the neediest.
Keeping guests safe remains
the top priority, said Georgia
Berkovich, director of public
affairs for the Midnight Mis-
sion. The shelter normally
holds about 280 people, but
because of social distancing
protocols instituted by the
county, 121 live there right
now.
Berkovich said lunch
Thursday will be a Thanks-
giving-themed meal with
turkey, yams, stuffing and
“all the fixings.” It’ll be
served by staff and residents
who have been adhering to
strict protocols.
Several grocery stores,
including Albertsons and
Erewhon, donated supplies.
Residents will dine in small
groups in their courtyard.
The shelter, which does a ro-
bust service of three meals a
day, will be cooking 50 tur-
keys for lunch. These meals
will be to-go.
“We’re expecting we’re
probably going to see a
larger number of peopleL.A. skid row’s
Thanksgiving to
look different
Amid the pandemic,
turkey will still be
served but ambience
will be less festive.
By Benjamin Oreskes
[SeeSkid row,B6]