Faced with a skyrocketing number of new coronavirus cases, California officials pulled what they characterized as an emergency brake, announcing a dramatic rollback of reopenings in much of the state.
Once the changes go into effect Tuesday, 94% of Californians — roughly 37 million people in all — will live in counties placed in the strictest tier of the state’s reopening roadmap. Many businesses in those counties will have to suspend or severely limit their indoor operations.
“We are seeing community spread broadly now throughout the state of California,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.
Last week, just 13 of California’s 58 counties were in the strictest, or purple, tier. Newsom announced Monday that 28 more would be moved into that category.
“We are now moving backward, not forward,” he acknowledged.
Among the counties that have newly fallen back into the purple tier are Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Kern and San Luis Obispo. Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego and Imperial counties were already in that category.
The most populated counties in the Bay Area were also sent to the purple tier, including Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa and Solano counties. All eight counties in the San Joaquin Valley are also now in the purple tier.
The purple swath covers all of California’s Central Coast and much of the area in and around Sacramento County.
Monday’s dramatic announcement comes amid the steepest rise in COVID-19 cases that California has seen. Over the seven-day period ending Sunday, the state averaged 7,985 cases per day, up 89.7% from just two weeks ago, according to The Times’ coronavirus tracker.
The rolling metric hasn’t been this high since mid-August, and it is a far cry from just a month ago, when the seven-day average of new cases dipped below 3,000.
“This is simply the fastest increase California has seen since the beginning of this pandemic,” Newsom said.
Los Angeles County reported more than 3,000 new infections both Saturday and Sunday, with officials announcing 3,780 new cases on Saturday — the highest one-day total since mid-July.
“When cases are increasing at this pace, it is really important for us to act quickly,” acting state health officer Dr. Erica Pan said during a briefing Friday. “Every day makes a difference, and time is of the essence.”
As the case count swells, officials stress that it’s essential for residents to follow infection-prevention protocols such as wearing a mask in public, regularly washing their hands and staying home when they’re sick, as well as keeping a physical distance from, and avoiding gatherings with, those outside their households.
The recent rate of increase, Newsom said, “makes this perhaps the most difficult and challenging time throughout this year and, certainly, since the beginning of this pandemic.”
The widespread reassignment means that only 17 counties won’t be subject to the most stringent coronavirus-related restrictions outlined in California’s four-tier, color-coded blueprint, which specifies the extent to which businesses and other public spaces can operate in those areas.
Once the changes go into effect, 11 counties will be in the second-most-severe, or red, category: Del Norte, Modoc, Humboldt, Plumas, Colusa, Lake, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Amador and Mono.
Four — Lassen, Sierra, Calaveras and Inyo — are in the orange tier, and only two, Alpine and Mariposa, remain in the least-restrictive, or yellow, tier.
Even more changes could be coming in the near future. Although California has typically updated its tier assignments weekly on Tuesdays, Newsom said those determinations would now be made and announced closer to real time.
“We need now to be more aggressive,” he said, “more surgical, more targeted.”
Additionally, counties used to regress only if their metrics fell in the range of a more restrictive tier for two straight weeks. Now, those decisions can be made based on one week’s worth of data.
The tier system categorizes counties based on their average daily number of new coronavirus cases for every 100,000 residents and the percentage of conducted tests that detect the virus.
Though some of the increase in cases is likely the byproduct of ramped-up testing, the rate at which those tests are coming back positive is also increasing. About a month ago, the seven-day so-called positivity rate stood at 2.58%. Now, it’s 5%.
The number of those infected with COVID-19 who are ill enough to require hospitalization has also spiked in recent weeks. As of the latest tally, there were 3,852 coronavirus hospitalizations statewide — up roughly 48% from two weeks ago. There are 1,031 COVID-19 patients in intensive care.
“As I say to my patients often, ‘When I’m worried, I’ll tell you so you can worry with me.’ And we’re there,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s Health and Human Services secretary.
Eventually, “about 12% of those cases end up in the hospital,” he said during Friday’s briefing, “and when you look at a high number of cases day over day, and that’s sustained, that’s exactly what we worry about in terms of overwhelming our hospital system.”
More than 1 million Californians have been diagnosed with coronavirus at some point during the pandemic. Although most have recovered, more than 18,200 have died as a result.
The spate of new cases comes as California — and the rest of the nation — heads into what officials already predict will be a particularly dangerous time for the pandemic, when cooler temperatures increasingly push people indoors and holidays tempt residents to gather with other households.
Last week, Newsom issued an advisory recommending residents avoid unnecessary travel — including for Thanksgiving — and urging those who do head out of state to self-quarantine for 14 days when they return.
However, although the state is “encouraging Californians to stay close to home, to avoid nonessential travel to other states, other countries and, frankly, across the state if that’s avoidable,” Ghaly said, he clarified that the advisory was only that at this point: “It isn’t a ban; it isn’t a restriction.
“We believe Californians will do the right thing,” he said, “not just throughout these holidays, but moving forward as we respond to this surge in cases.”
Though Ghaly and other health officials have regularly preached that personal responsibility is key in helping ward off the worst the pandemic can bring, it remains to be seen what additional measures California could contemplate if that message falls on deaf ears.
That’s an especially worrying possibility as some residents and businesses grow increasingly tired of, or resentful toward, the sacrifices they’ve been asked to make for months.
Thanksgiving could prove a particularly hard sell for pandemic-weary Californians. The state has generally banned large gatherings — though shorter, smaller ones of no more than three households may be held, provided they take place outdoors and attendees physically distance and wear face coverings.
Whether large numbers of families will willingly forgo fellowship and food around the Thanksgiving table remains to be seen.
“I know everybody wants to know what to do for Thanksgiving, and the basic answer — to be the Grinch who stole Thanksgiving — is not to do it,” Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco, said at a recent campus town hall meeting.
It’s safest to connect with extended friends and family through video calls or by phone, while limiting in-person celebrations only to those you live with, officials and experts say.
As the latest surge shows no signs of slowing down, some L.A. County officials have discussed potentially limiting businesses’ hours or instituting some type of curfew.
“I think it makes sense to do everything we can to encourage people not to be out and about, not to be mingling with others,” said county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. “And if we can’t make those choices ourselves, you’re forced to sort of look at, structurally, how do you make it harder for people to intermingle, particularly in activities where we know there’s going to be spread.”
Newsom also said the state was assessing the possibility of a curfew, though he said that idea was still being studied.
Times staff writers Taryn Luna, Alex Wigglesworth, David Zahniser and Iris Lee contributed to this report.
