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California: Gov. Newsom expands orders to entire state
As the coronavirus rages through California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that all counties across the state are required to immediately close indoor dining, bars, movie theatres, zoos and museums.
Counties on the governor’s “watch list” for troubling coronavirus trends — which now totals 30 counties where 80% of Californians live — must also shutter gyms, hair salons, places of worship, malls and non-essential offices. Monterey is on that list that includes Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma in the Bay Area. Newsom said Monday that he expects to add Alameda County within the next day.
The governor’s announcement comes less than a week after the July 4th holiday weekend and at a time typically marked by summer vacations and travels across the state.
“We’re moving back into a modification mode of our original stay-at-home order, but doing so utilizing a dimmer switch, not an off-on switch,” Newsom said.
Following a continued spike in cases over the weekend — 323,344 people have been infected with COVID-19 in California while the death toll has climbed to 7,040 — the state deemed it necessary to “dim” reopening efforts.
As of Monday, the state is averaging more than 8,200 cases a day. Hospitalizations have risen 28% over the past two weeks, and the rate of coronavirus tests returning positive results is now at 7.7% — up from 4.6% about three weeks ago.
Newsom said that the reason the state is imposing added restrictions again is due to an increase in ICU use in rural parts of the state. Placer and Butte counties, for instance, only have 20% of their ICU capacity available.
“We were able to suppress the spread of this virus, we were able to knock down the growth of this in the beginning. We’re going to do that again,” Newsom said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”
Hair salons were permitted to reopen in Contra Costa County about a month ago. Acknowledging the upward trend in cases, county public health officials had already announced over the weekend that they were shutting down indoor worship services and requiring outdoor diners to wear masks at all times except when putting good and drinks into their mouths.
Barbara Collaro, a cosmetologist at Hair at the Ritz in Pleasant Hill, was franticly calling clients Monday afternoon to inform them of the newly imposed closure and cancel dozens of appointments.
“It’s disappointing because we’ve been doing everything we possibly could to keep our salon clean and follow all the rules and then they just shut us down anyway,” Callaro said. “Last time they said it would be three weeks, but it was three months.
“Who knows how long it’ll be this time.”