A "stay at home"order in California

CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR 

ORDERS ALL CITIZENS TO 

"STAY HOME"

HalTurner,

19 March, 2020

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued a statewide order for all residents to ‘stay at home’ amid a coronavirus outbreak.

“We need to bend the curve in the state of California,” Governor Gavin Newsom said, as he announced a statewide order for Californians to stay home. “There’s a social contract here, people I think recognize the need to do more. They will adjust and adapt as they have.”

Newsom added: “Home isolation is not my preferred choice…but it is a necessary one ...This is not a permanent state, it is a moment in time.”

The stay home order is in place till further notice.

All dine-in restaurants, bars and clubs, gyms and fitness studios will be closed, according to the order. Public events and gatherings are also not allowed. Essential services will stay open, however, such as pharmacies, grocery stores, takeout and delivery restaurants, and banks.

Newsom said he made the decision “based upon some new information” that came in from Johns Hopkins University.

The Governor also Tweeted the ORDER:

California estimates that more than half of the state — 25.5 million people — will get the new coronavirus over the next eight weeks, according to a letter sent by Gov. Gavin Newsom to U.S. President Donald Trump.

“In the last 24 hours, we had 126 new COVID-19 cases, a 21 percent increase. In some parts of our state, our case rate is doubling every four days,” Newsom wrote in a letter dated Wednesday. Newsom asked Trump to dispatch the USNS Mercy Hospital Ship to the Port of Los Angeles through Sept. 1 to help with the influx of expected cases. 

California reported nearly 699 confirmed cases as of 9 p.m. ET Wednesday night, according to the California health department. Newsom said the virus is spreading in the community in 23 counties across the state. It is the third hardest hit state in the U.S., behind Washington state which has 1,376 cases as of 6 p.m. EDT Thursday and New York which has at least 5,000 cases. 

Earlier this week, Newsom ordered all non-essential businesses to close, including bars, beer pubs and wineries. Grocery stores, pharmacies, banks, cannabis clubs and other businesses deemed as essential are still open, state and local officials say.

San Francisco Bay area officials on Monday became the first in the country to issue a “shelter in place” order that will affect nearly 7 million residents of six counties in the Bay Area as the region tries to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Thursday issued a “Safer at Home” order, asking residents to stay home and limit all “non essential activities.”