Approved. Plus stay at home as much as possible. Thats the message from l. A. County. The strict new rule about to take effect down south also a holiday tradition continues despite the pandemic. The major transformation they made to keep families safe and happy. We begin with breaking news in sacramento. A mall shooting leaves one person dead, another critically hurt. Sacramento police say they were called out to the ardent fair mall just after 6 00 tonight after reports of a shooting. It did happen in the mall, sent people running for safety. Some people stuck inside mall stores for hours. Turns out the mall was busy because there were a lot of black friday shoppers there. Police say it was not an active shooter scenario and the gunman was able to get away. At this point no suspect description has been released. Good evening, everyone. Even covid19 could not stop the day after thanksgiving shopping push. Black friday a go albeit with some modifications. That includes masks, shorter lines and more shopping options. Nbc bay areas Sergio Quintana is in San Francisco tonight with a look at how different black friday is this year. Reporter at union square there was no Tree Lighting ceremony this year, but its still a spot where people came to snap pictures and take a break from the shopping. Still busy but not like it used to be. Reporter the holiday lights here at union square still makes for a picture perfect social media post. The ice skating rink is absent and there are no official vendors but the shopping is still serious business. And lots of shoppers spent black friday on the hunt for deals. This was the line of cars leading into the best buy. The Electronics Retailer changed some things this year in order to avoid crushing lines in stores. It allows Curbside Pickup and the sales are extended over one weekend instead of just one day. But more options doesnt necessarily mean faster service. Its taking close to an hour, 45 minutes just to get one item. If the other item is not ready, then you have to come back for that other item. Reporter we heard best buy employees telling customers wait times could stretch as much as 3 hours. Ats target sales are also doled out over a the weekend, but people still flocked to the location. It was crowded, too crowded. They need to space it out a little bit. Because of coronavirus it is a lot of people but this one doesnt have a line which is nice, but the one up the street has a long line to get in. Reporter in Santa Clara County inspectors are cracking down and issuing citations in an effort to keep shopping crowds sparse and continue to flatten the spike in covid19 cases. Sergio quintana, nbc bay area news. That crack down comes as cases continue to climb at an alarming rate in Santa Clara County. Today alone the county recorded 545 new cases. According to our list thats the highest daily total since the pandemic began. Well, purple may be around the corner. The city of San Francisco is warning businesses tighter restricts could come in just a matter of days. Right now all but three bay area counties are in the most restrictive purple tier. That includes San Francisco which is still in the red tier which you see there. But covid cases continues to surge in the city. If the city moves to the purple tier indoor operations must stop inhouses of worship, movie theaters, museums, zoos, aquariums and fitness centers. The golden gate park, the museums, those will have to close. We have reached out to those organizations but we havent heard back what their plans are at this point. So just how close is San Francisco to moving to that purple tier . This chart pretty much explains it. It shows the average cases in San Francisco over the past month. The number the city is trying to avoid is just under an average of 60 new cases per 100,000 people. This is where the purple tier is. That breaking point is 16. That triggers a move into the purple tier. A month ago San Francisco was averaging about 4 new cases per 100,000 people, but then you can see the line straight to go up and right now moving closer and closer, it hit 15 new cases per 100,000 people. Right shy below that 16 number, that puts it in the purple tier. Pfizers covid19 vaccine has yet to be approved by regulators but the first doses are already being flown around the world for quick distribution in anticipation of a green light. The faa says it is allowing united to carry 15,000 pounds of dry ice per flight. Thats five times more than normally permitted in order to properly store the vaccines. Pfizer requested emergency approval from the fda last week. A meeting to review that request is now set for december 10th. And that vaccine or any of the others cant come soon enough. Covid cases nationwide are up 10 , but the cdc says the real infection rate could be eight times higher. And we could see yet another spike largely due to holiday gatherings. Hospitalizations on thanksgiving hit a record high for the 17th straight day. And by next week Health Experts say nearly a quarter of all hospitals could face a staffing shortage. The Biggest Challenges that the vaccines are becoming available right at the time were experiencing another surge. So the nurses who commonly would be the ones to administer the vaccine are needed at the bed side to care for Covid Patients as well as nonCovid Patients. Cedar sinai in l. A. Expects some of the first vaccine doses to arrive soon. Theyll be store in a stay of the art ultra code freezer. The state reported 12,635 new covid cases today. Not a record but more than double the number ofs we were seeing each day just a few weeks ago. Positivity rate also keeps going up in the state. Its now 6. 1 . Two weeks ago it was just 4. 2. New stricter stay at home orders as cases soar there to new records. All public and private gatherings with people who are not in your household banned. And there are also new capacity guidelines for business operations. The new rules go into effect next week. L. A. County reported more than 4,500 daily cases today alone. San francisco is rolling out a Virtual Assistant tool as part of its Contact Tracing as the number of cases toncontinues to rise. In addition to calling people they can now use this option. Nbc bay areas Christie Smith explains. Over the last reporter dr. Susan philip is the Deputy Health officer in San Francisco and an Infectious Disease specialist speaking amid a rise in covid cases. In investigating these cases and informing close contact, helping people isolate thats how we slow the spread of covid19. Reporter she says San Francisco has one of the most robust and Case InvestigationContact Tracing teams. At most times during the pandemic the department of Public Health is reaching more than 80 of people who test positive for covid and close contacts. This tool is part of the states platform. San francisco has just recently moved over our Case Investigation and Contact Tracing system to the state system called cal connect. So this tool is now available to us. Reporter it begins with a text to the number provided at the time of the test. And an Online Survey on your smart phone. The Virtual Assistant is tool we use in conjunction with our 200 team members. And its confidential just like a phone call is from our Health Department from our covid team. Reporter we spoke with a few people along the embarcadero who sounded hopeful. There are countries that used Contact Tracing successfully, so ideally if we could do that, that would be great. Any avenues we can use to make sure were all safe. Reporter City Residents who test positive would receive notification. Additional calls may go to areas with disproportionate cases with the idea of focusing resources there, too. We are not giving up on reaching anyone. Reporter in San Francisco, Christie Smith, nbc bay area news. Santa clara county is ramping up testing to try and slow the spread of covid19. The county is opening several new free testing locations. The goal is to slow the spread by identifying people who have the virus but dont show any symptoms. The walk up and appointmentonly testing sites are located in los los gatos, cupertino and palo altee. Appointments can be made online at sccfreetest. Org. A bay area tradition will go on this year despite the pandemic. People love to go. This year they moved, and they changed the layout, too. Nbc bay areas ian cull takes you through. Reporter its Opening Night at san joses christmas in the park. The line packed with families for a long awaited holiday season. Its pretty awesome. We were actually quite impressed. Reporter the event moved from downtown to history park so people could stay safe in their cars for a drivethru experience. The garcias brought their grandkids who have been waiting to get out and do something normal. Its safe, its fun. The kids are having a good time. The lights are amazing. Reporter there are old traditions like booths and trees and a new one like a ballerina from the nutcracker and multiple light tunnels. Its really cool. Its pretty special since weve been cooped up all year. Nice to get out and be with the community. Reporter all of this took about six weeks to setup, and theyve added 160,000 new lights just this year. Seeing peoples faces light up when they start to go through the drivethru is incredible. Reporter jason is the executive director and had to oversee the major transformation from the traditional setting like last year to this one. Weve been doing for 40 years. We celebrated our 40th last year, so this kind of gives us something new to focus on. Reporter it goes from 4 00 to 9 30 every night through january 3rd. The cost is 10 to 20 per car. Plenty of Tickets Available just not tonight or tomorrow night. Reporter and you have to buy those tickets during a certain time slot on libe. Walk ups arent allowed. Most families say for all thats changed in to20 this one is lifting their spirits. In san jose, ian cull, nbc news, bay area news. Picking out the perfect tree in the midst of a pandemic. Still ahead the new protocol in place at bay area Christmas Tree farms. Plus getting ready january 20th. The work under way in washington two months until inauguration day. Temps in the north bay already dropping down to the 30s right now. What you can expect for your weekend forecast coming up. Work on the setup for inauguration under way outside the white house. Crews sawing, measuring today as they constructed viewing stands for the ceremony which will take place on the west lawn of the capitol. Planning for the inauguration began back in july. Lafayette park and the white house sidewalk has been closed for weeks now to allow for all the construction. Meanwhile President Trump continues his twitter claims that the election is fraudulent. Today a philadelphia appeals court, though, weighed in on the matter. The court rejecting the president s latest efforts to challenge pennsylvanias election results. The court calling it, quote, an election unfair does not make it so. Calling an election unfair doesnt make it so. Charges include specific allegations and then proof and we have neither here. Now, if the Campaign Appeals the case could reach the u. S. Supreme court as well. In wisconsin a recount in Milwaukee County came to an end this evening. No fraud was found. The certified results confirmed president elect joe biden won in that county. A recount is essentially an audit and process that verifies the accuracy of the balloting process that takes place on election day. I promise that this would be a transparent and fair process and it was. The republican vice chair of the milwaukee board of canvassers says the recount was, quote, exemplary, but added he expects the Trump Campaign to pursue moreitig lion. The former ceo and visionary of zapos has died. She grew up in the bay area. The new ceo said he played a big part in creating and driving the Company Culture it has today. Its not clear how hsiah died. Hes been called a cultural warrior and champion of civil rights. Tonight the bay area mourns the loss of a latino musical icon. He marched for social justice for caesar chavez. He died on thanksgiving day from complications of covid19. Well miss him from the bottom of our hearts for the rest of our lives. Mon toya posted on social media just three days ago he was feeling better after being diagnosed with covid19. News arrived thursday that he had lost his fight. Well, back in may the u. S. Supreme court denied a California Church to open up in defiance of covid rules, but this week new york churches did get permission. Religious conservative Amy Coney Barrett replaced ruth bader ginsburg, that shifted the high courts balance. They ruled against the new york Governor Cuomo and allowed churches to reopen. That decision had san diego counties united. A Pasadena Church and a ministry tied to 160 other California Churches also intends to appeal to the Supreme Court so they can allow them to reopen as well. The head of a San Francisco based Grocery Delivery Service is taking responsibility for his company failing to drop off holiday groceries in time for thanksgiving. In an email sent to impacted customers the ceo of good eggs says the company was too optimistic about what it could accomplish and that he made a poor leadership decision. Customers now have three options. They can ask for additional account credit, request a 100 donation be made to the Alameda County food bank or request a free special holiday gift box in december. A lot of families are heading out to get that and protocols to keep everyone staf and that includes capping the number of families that can go in at the same time. One east bay tree farm was so busy today it actually had to close its gates. Reporter this is how dozens of families burned off their thanksgiving calories today. Everyone needs more hope and i think thats why so many people are here buying their trees because we all want hope. Reporter even though theres plenty of fresh air circulating here the family owned tree farm is requiring customers to wear face masks and stay 6 feet apart from others. Another addition to the tree farm, sanitizing station. We have our hand washing table. We wash all of our tools. If somebody is going to use it we wash it before we give it to them. The farm had to close its gates in the middle of the day to limit the crowd. Its a mixed bag. Some people are feeling frustrated so that makes it harder. Reporter no frustration from this family of four from berkeley who waited 15 minutes in their car before they were allowed in. Id rather wait and have less crowds than come in and have it be super packed. So i think theyre doing a great job. Reporter customers can also order precut trees and have them delivered to their homes. Ive been telling everybody lets make it our best christmas season. Why not. Reporter a bright spot for what has been a dark year for many. If youre going to be home you want to have a really nice Christmas Tree because itll just be you and your family and your tree. This year more than ever. Gorgeous today for those people out there cutting down their Christmas Tree. Whats it going to look like for the next couple of days . Great weekend for cutting down the Christmas Tree. Also it was very nice to see you guys even if it is through the screen tv as well. Lets get to that forecast. 51 degrees in San Francisco, probably one of the warmest spots in the bay area because were already in the 30s in the north bay. Look at fairfax, 36 degrees right now. And there are no clouds in sight. And whenever we get clouds at night that sort of helps act as a blanket to keep our temperatures nice and warm, but not tonight. Look at current temperature right now 43 and overnight lows will dip down into the 30s. By the time you wake up tomorrow youre definitely going to need a jacket or coat if you head out early. Current temperature 39 degrees and lets take a look at the temperature change. Santa rosa 20 degrees cooler compared to yesterday. Concord and fairfield definitely a drop in those temperatures. Showcasing just how clear the skies are. Were going to enjoy plenty of that sunshine again heading into the weekend. Notice the wind speeds remain calm. Thats a big difference. And your hour by hour temperature santa rosa about 32 degrees, concord 39, so definitely expect to see the possibility of some frost especially for those wind sheltered valleys, and by the afternoon were going to get mostly sunny skies, temperatures in the mid60s throughout the bay area. San jose, 65. San francisco, 63. And lets talk about the longrange outlook. Because any chance of rain is going to stay to the north of us. On monday a system will pass our north. But with it its going to bring more likely the chance of seeing the return of wind and also some high clouds and also some fog in the early morning. Aside from that were going to stay pretty dry through the first week of december. Its looking like no rain in sight at least dempt not meserable rain. Temperatures will remain in the 60s for San Francisco and also inland areas. And overnight areas cold in the 30s. So bundle up tonight and tomorrow. Have a good night. Just ahead, the new robot designed to test people for covid19. Happening now the nfl announcing Team Facilities will be closed to all in person activities this coming monday and tuesday. The league says the closure is due to a spike in covid cases as well as the likelihood players and staff celebrated thanksgiving with some out of town guests. The closure does not apply to teams scheduled to play monday, though. Heart monitors that let your doctor watch over you, just like you watch over your best friend. Another lifechanging technology from abbott, so you dont wait for life. You live it. Combating the spread of coronavirus using technology. One man says hes created a robot that can test human patients for covid19. The robot can take the patients temperature, draw blood and even take xrays. It then displays the results on a screen. The idea, of course, is to test people for the virus without exposing hospital staff to covid positive patients. The robot is being used at a private hospital in egypt. From a robot to a computer that will study the spread of coronavirus. Thats what a team of researchers in japan is doing. Researchers used a super computer to simulate how the virus spreads in different locations like an airplane or a taxi or outdoors. Now in planes and taxis they found the spread of the virus particles reduced to about a third if the passengers wore masks. They also looked at an Outdoor Dining setting when ten people eating or talking about 3 feet apart. They found that wearing a mask could cut the spread of droplets in this scenario to almost zero. Thats pretty impressive. That is. Reclaiming the ax. The wild ening to todays big game. Thats up next in sports. It is that question, one of the oldest and most celebrated rivalries in college football. Of course were talking about cal and stanford. Today was the 123rd big game and looked and sounded a little different. There were no fans allowed inside Memorial Stadium because of the pandemic, but there was still plenty of excitement. Cal scored a touch down with under a minute oo go in the fourth. The extra point would have tied the game but its blocked. Sfanferred holds onto win 2423, reclaiming the ax from the golden bears. We wanted to put a complete game together. Still didnt play our best. Theres still much more we can improve on but good team victory, really excited. Stanford is now one and two on the season. Cal drops to 0 and 3. A major upset in College Hoops thanks to San Francisco. Beat number four virginia. This is the dons first win over a top five team in nearly 40 years. In exactly 15 days the warriors will play their first game in nine months. The nba announced its preseason schedule today. Golden state will play three games, the first december 12th against the nuggets in the chase center and then the kings to round out the preseason. Regular season begins the 22nd. Were back with more. Todays ways of working may work differently tomorrow. But you can work out anything with comcast business. Get fast, reliable, and secure internet on the nations largest gig speed network. Flexible tools like wifi you control. Voice solutions that connect you from anywhere. And expert advice here, here, or even here. Be fast. Be flexible. Bounce forward with comcast business. Get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just 64. 90 a month. Plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a 500 prepaid card when you upgrade. Switch today. Okay, 30 rock already rocking christmas. The rockefeller Christmas Tree up and ready it be lit. Thatll happen next week. People wont be able to watch the ceremony in person, but you can watch it from the comfort of your home right here on nbc bay area on wednesday night. One thing you can see in person 16 Christmas Trees that capture all the holiday spirit. Students from the academy of Art University created the trees as part of a design exercise. Each tree has a qr code to give visitors a selfguided tour. Something actually happening you can go see this christmas. In person. Thats going to do it for us. Hope you have a great weekend and stay healthy. Have a good night. [ cheers and applause