UPDATED November 23, 10:36 a.m. ET: Over the weekend, health officials announced that Los Angeles County will shut down restaurants, breweries, wineries and bars for at least three weeks starting Wednesday amid a surge in coronavirus cases. The establishments will only be able to offer takeout, drive-thru, and delivery services, and the restrictions will take effect Wednesday at 10 p.m.
See original story from 11/19/2020 below.
In an effort to combat the growing number of daily coronavirus cases in the state, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a limited stay-at-home order starting on Saturday until Dec. 21. The order will attempt to curb activity from the hours of 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. in the 41 counties that fall in the purple tier.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the purple tier is the highest of the four tiers and is considered to be an area where widespread transmission of the virus is taking place. There are more than seven new cases per 100,000 people each day and a positivity rate above eight percent.
“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, per Deadline. “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.”
On Wednesday, California reported 11,835 new cases, the most in a single day since late July. It’s also the third straight day that the number of daily cases have eclipsed the 10,000 mark. California’s struggles to keep the number of daily cases down is only a small snapshot of the entire country’s inability to suppress the spread of the virus. The United States had more than 176,000 new cases yesterday. The next closest country was India with over 45,000 cases.
Dr. Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization's Regional Director of Europe, reiterated that masks are an effective way of controlling the virus. "Mask use is by no means a panacea and needs to be done in combination with other measures," he said at a press conference in Denmark. "However, if mask use reached 95 percent, lockdowns would not be needed. But at a current 60 percent, or lower mask use, it is hard to avoid lockdowns."
