California has now recorded 1.2 million virus cases and 19,468 deaths, and on Thursday, Mr. Newsom and other state leaders appeared, unmasked, inside the state’s emergency operations center in Sacramento to order residents to stay home. That approach, however, has drawn criticism in the past, as it resulted in piecemeal compliance with restrictions.īy many measures, the situation across California is even bleaker than in March, when Mr. “We didn’t want to be punitive but we wanted to be firm,” he said. Newsom emphasized that California would withhold funding from counties that refused to enforce the new stay-at-home order. “If we don’t act now we’ll continue to see our death rate climb.”Īs he did repeatedly earlier this year, Mr. “If we don’t act now our hospital system will be overwhelmed,” Mr. The governor also said people should temporarily call off all nonessential travel. The new restrictions will last for at least three weeks, strictly limit store capacity and allow restaurants to serve only takeout or delivery.

Millions of people across Southern and Central California are likely to see outdoor dining shuttered, playgrounds roped off and hair salons closed within days if the available intensive-care capacity in their areas dips below a 15 percent threshold. Gavin Newsom said the new round of regional stay-at-home orders would take effect as intensive-care beds filled up.

LOS ANGELES - California, the first state to impose far-reaching lockdowns because of the coronavirus, announced on Thursday its strictest new measures since the earliest days of the pandemic in an effort to keep a surge in cases from overwhelming hospitals.

California on lockdown again