Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced a mandatory overnight stay-at-home order that will be instituted throughout most of California to combat a surge in new coronavirus cases, a measure that comes just days after the governor enacted a dramatic rollback of reopening in much of the state.
The order issued by the California Department of Public Health will prohibit most nonessential activity outside the home from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. in counties in the strictest tier of the state’s reopening road map — the purple tier. The restriction goes into place on Saturday and lasts through Dec. 21, though it could be extended.
“The virus is spreading at a pace we haven’t seen since the start of this pandemic and the next several days and weeks will be critical to stop the surge. We are sounding the alarm,” Newsom said in a statement released Thursday afternoon. “It is crucial that we act to decrease transmission and slow hospitalizations before the death count surges. We’ve done it before and we must do it again.”
Roughly 94% of Californians — 37 million people — live in counties that are in the purple tier, which has forced many businesses in those communities to suspend or severely restrict the number of customers allowed indoors.
The state has reported an average of more than 10,000 new cases each day over the last week. California has not experienced a daily case count this high since the outbreak began, even during the surge in the summer that stands as the state’s deadliest time of the COVID-19 pandemic. – READ MORE
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