STAY-AT-HOME ORDER BEGINS
County residents among those covered by regional pandemic restrictions
The pandemic that has killed nearly 20,000 Californians entered a treacherous phase Sunday as San Diego County and much of the state began a new stay-at-home order.
The state mandated the restrictions in Southern California and the Central Valley as capacity at hospitals’ intensive care units hit dangerously low levels.
Five counties in the San Francisco Bay Area began lockdown restrictions as soon as Sunday night despite not yet reaching the threshold at which such action is mandated by the state.
The order will apply to about 33 million Californians, or 84 percent of the state’s population.
The rules are less sweeping than California’s stay-at-home order in the spring, which is credited with slowing the first COVID-19 wave.
Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley implemented the order at 11:59 p.m. Sunday. Restaurants must halt in-person dining and can offer food only for delivery and takeout. Gatherings of people from different households will be prohibited, except for outdoor religious services and political demonstrations.
Affected communities will be required to close hair and nail salons, playgrounds, zoos, museums, card rooms, aquariums and wineries. Nonessential travel and use of hotels for leisure will be banned, as will overnight, short-term stays at campgrounds. All retail can remain open, but at 20 percent capacity.
The rules will remain in place for at least three weeks.
The restrictions, which come amid the holiday season, are facing increasing criticism. Some officials were quick to slam Gov. Gavin Newsom for going too far. But new data show that the coronavirus is spreading through communities at alarming rates.
The stay-at-home order — the
latest in a series of attempts to slow the spread of the coronavirus and prevent local health care systems from becoming overwhelmed — is triggered when a region’s intensive care unit availability drops below 15 percent.
On Saturday, Southern California’s ICU capacity was 12.5 percent, and the San Joaquin Valley’s was 8.6 percent, according to data released by the state. On Sunday, those numbers fell to 10.3 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively.
Officials have said the measures are needed to avoid a crush of COVID-19 patients that could jeopardize hospitals’ ability to care for them and for patients with other conditions. Mortality rates can dramatically increase when ICUs are stretched beyond capacity, and officials have warned that there are limits on the number of doctors, nurses and other health care providers who are trained in providing intensive care.
Quality of care can fall substantially if hospitals are forced to transfer critically ill patients to parts of the hospital that are not designed for such use.
Locally, the number of concurrent hospitalizations continues to grow. On Sunday, officials said 839 people were in San Diego County hospitals with COVID-19, the highest total since the start of the pandemic. That total includes 221 patients who are receiving intensive care.
At UC San Diego Medical Center, just six of 112 intensive care beds were unoccupied Sunday, and doctors expressed concern that an extended crisis would put extreme pressure on nurses and doctors.
“It’s more about the duration,” said Dr. Chris Longhurst, the hospital’s associate chief medical officer. “If the surge were 48 hours, it would be all hands on deck and we’d all be there to take care of them, and then we could get through it. What you can’t manage is a sustained surge.”
San Diego County officials also reported 1,703 new COVID-19 cases and seven additional deaths. Locally, 1,062 residents have died of the pandemic.
Los Angeles County, an epicenter of coronavirus in California, reported 10,528 new cases on Sunday, a staggering number for a single day that underscores fears that the virus spread rapidly during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 neared 3,000 — and Los Angeles County Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that number could rise dramatically in the next few weeks as the full toll of the holiday comes into view.
It was the seventh consecutive day of recordbreaking COVID-19 hospitalizations in Los Angeles County, and more than quadruple the number from early October, when there were about 700 hospitalized people with the disease.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing daily hospitalizations approaching 4,000 in a couple of weeks,” Ferrer said in an interview
Sunday. “I am positive that we haven’t seen the full increases in our case numbers associated with the Thanksgiving holiday, just based on the timeline.”
State officials are hopeful the latest stay-at-home order will slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, but it’s already clear some have no intention of following the new rules.
On Sunday, more than 100 people, many who weren’t wearing masks, walked into Awaken Church in Kearny Mesa.
The church has already been issued a cease-and-desist letter for holding indoor services in defiance of the public health order and was the site of an outbreak. That didn’t stop dozens of congregants, some with small children, from filing into the church’s auditorium.
In a November statement, the church said it will continue to hold in-person services.
Although some local officials were disappointed or critical of the state’s new regional approach, the county has made it clear that it will be adhering to the new rules.
Newsom has emphasized that California will withhold funding from counties that refuse to enforce the stay-athome order.
Some local leaders are asking for some changes, however.
On Sunday, San Diego Mayor-elect Todd Gloria, asked the governor to consider allowing playgrounds to stay open. Under the new order, they must close.
“For so many children and families, and particularly for those in lower income communities, outdoor playgrounds provide important recreational opportunities,” Gloria wrote in a letter.
“As you have stressed, to promote physical and mental health, children must be able to stay active and take advantage of outdoor activity,” it said.