Stay-at-home orders coming
Expected likely in ‘next day or two’
Stay-at-home restrictions could be hitting Northern California, and Humboldt County, “in the next day or two,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a news conference Thursday afternoon.
Newsom announced stay-athome orders that will go into effect if a region has less than 15% of its ICU capacity available. Humboldt County is part of the Northern California region. No regions yet meet the designated threshold, but it could be happening in a matter of days. The order, once put in effect, would last for three weeks. The state would evaluate transmission levels after three weeks to determine whether the stay-at-home order could be lifted.
“Lives are in the balance,” Newsom said. “Lives will be lost … if we do not do everything in our power
to get through the next number of weeks, number of months.”
The announcement comes as Humboldt County announced the highest singleday increase in cases with 44 new cases. That brings the total number of cases announced in December to 95 and 143 in the past week.
“Forty-four cases is obviously the highest daily report we’ve seen to date, and at this point in the pandemic, we know that hospitalizations
and deaths follow weeks behind,” said Dr. Josh Ennis, the interim county health officer, in a news release.
Ennis added hospital capacity is not yet a concern.
Newsom noted the recent holiday’s effects are not being seen yet.
“The effects of Thanksgiving … they will be felt in a number of weeks,” Newsom said. “Dr. (Anthony) Fauci, I think, said it best. He says we should anticipate ‘a surge on top of a surge.’ “
Newsom also noted in addition to case rates and hospitalizations increasing, death rates are also up.
“We’ve seen death rates in
crease significantly over the course of the last number of weeks,” he said. “… On Nov. 2, we reported the tragic loss of 14 lives related to this pandemic. In the last 24 hours, similar to the previous 24 hours, we’ve reported back to back days with 113 deaths.”
Newsom said it is critical to get through the next few weeks and months as the state looks ahead to receiving the first doses of vaccines.
“Help is on the way,” Newsom said. “There is light at the end of this tunnel. We are not in a permanent state. This is a temporary state. This is the third wave of a pandemic with a vaccine
that’s not under the development of a vaccine, it’s now being distributed not by one distributor, but by many different distributors.”
He said 327,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine are expected to arrive around the middle of December. Those will go to health care workers first and are divided into six regions of the state. Another tier system determines who will get the first doses.
Newsom also noted there are overflow capacity centers across the state with hundreds of beds in what he called “warm status” — or ready to go at a moment’s notice. The closest of the centers are in San Francisco and Conta Costa counties, a significant distance from Humboldt County.
Asked about counties where enforcement is lax or where law enforcement has said they do not plan to enforce stay-at-home orders, Newsom said pandemic relief is on the line.
“If you are unwilling to enforce (stay-at-home orders) … we are happy to redirect those dollars to counties that feel differently. We have sent letters to counties that have defied orders.”