California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered the closure of indoor activities of certain businesses statewide as cases of coronavirus surge in the country’s most populous state.
Newsom, a Democrat, announced during a press briefing that all bars across the state must close-up shop and that restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, family entertainment centers, zoos, museums and card rooms have to suspend indoor activities.
The governor also announced that all gyms, places of worship, malls, personal care services, barbershops, salons, and non-critical offices, in counties on the state’s “monitoring list” had to shut down under the new order. The order affects more than 30 counties in the state, or about 80 percent of California’s population.
“We’ve made this point on multiple occasions and that is we’re moving back into a modification mode of our original stay-at-home order,” Newsom said during his press briefing. “This continues to be a deadly disease.”
As of Monday, the state had reported more than 320,000 COVID-19 cases and over 7,000 deaths, with 23 people dying from the virus since Sunday. Los Angeles County – the country’s most populous county – leads both the state and the country in number of confirmed COVID-19 cases with more than 133,000, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
California in March was the first state to impose a mandatory stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the virus. Public health officials praised the state’s quick action, marveling at how the nation’s most populous state kept its cases and hospitalizations low while states like New York and New Jersey struggled to contain the highly contagious disease.
By late April, Newsom — under increasing pressure – began slowly and then more quickly allowing businesses and activities to resume, citing the state’s increased hospital capacity to handle a new surge of cases. Cases began rising in early June and have exploded since, increasing 48 percent in the past two weeks while hospitalizations have increased 40 percent.
Newsom’s announcement comes just hours after the state’s two largest school districts, Los Angeles and San Diego, will begin the new school year next month but students will not return to campuses. The districts said in a joint statement Monday they will start the school year with online instruction only, but will plan for in-person learning as health conditions allow.
Also on Monday, the World Health Organization warns that the pandemic is worsening globally and things won’t return to “the old normal” for some time.
