California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California would apply the Regional Stay-at-home order officially from this Saturday in order to tackle to coronavirus.
The motivation for this action caused by the fact that California right now only has 15% of ICU beds left, and as a result of high increase of new coronavirus cases in the state, an order has to be made. Five regions of California have 48 hours to make any adjustment. Some states don’t meet the required thresh hold yet, but they are given time to make any adaption.
Previously, Governor Newsom has warned a potential regional lock down for the state California if the new cases of coronavirus keep increasing rapidly. Newsom admitted that he had to “pulling an emergency brake,” as the capacity for ICU beds are running short at this moment.
The region that follow the new Regional Stay-at-home order will be locked down in three weeks, and the list will include these regions.
- Northern California: Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama, Trinity
- Bay Area: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma
- Greater Sacramento: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Sierra, Sutter, Yolo, Yuba
- San Joaquin Valley: Calaveras, Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, San Benito, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare, Tuolumne
- Southern California: Imperial, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura
Those Newsom had to make a tough decision, he believed in the better future for California. “This is temporary. Hope is on the way. Relief is on the way. A vaccine is coming — with first doses arriving in the next few weeks,” Newsom wrote on his Twitter.
The Stay-at-home order will be applied for states that have less than 15% of ICU beds capacity. Los Angeles County for sure will involve in the list as they only have 122 ICU beds left on Wednesday. Imperial County will also be included in the lock down list as the region only had 2 ICU beds left on Thursday. Though it is unclear how locking down 5 regions can change the situation of coronavirus, Newsom indicated that it is necessary since the ICU beds capacity in these five regions are running low.
During the lock down time, retailers can work but only allow to have maximum 20% capacity. Newsom said that he wished this could be the final time he asked the lockdown. The governor hoped that the pandemic would end soon.
California currently is end an urgent situation since the state only has 1,731 out of 7,662 ICU beds available; the number was registered on Thursday.
