-Editorial
California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered Monday all counties in the state to close indoor operations for a handful of businesses, including restaurants, bars, movie theaters, and museums, as Covid-19 cases continue to climb.
The businesses will be allowed to operate outdoors, if possible, he said. In addition to the statewide order, Newsom said he would also close indoor operations for fitness centers, worship services, personal care services, malls, offices, hair salons and barbershops for 30 counties on California’s monitoring list, which represent 80% of the state’s population.
The day after California officials revealed that the number of deaths related to coronavirus in the state had passed 7,000, Gov.Gavin Newsom said Monday that there have been 8,358 new cases reported in the state over the past 24 hours.
“We are moving back into a ‘modification mode’ of our original stay-at-home order,” said Newsom. “This is a new statewide action, effective today.”
According to the governor, hospitalization in the state over the past 14 days are up 28 percent; ICU admissions have risen 20 percent. Both of those counts are down in comparison to where they were two weeks ago, from 50 percent and 39 percent, respectively.
The test positivity rate, according to state figures, has risen to about 7.7 percent over the last seven days.
“This virus is not going away anytime soon,” he said. “I hope all of us recognize that if we were still connected to some notion that somehow when it gets warm it’s going to go away or somehow it’s going to take summer months or weekends off, this virus has done neither.”