Written by Michael Palomba
Last night Governor Gavin Newsom announced the country’s first shelter in place order, with New York following suit this morning.
The order went into effect at midnight, and requires the state’s nearly 40 million residents to effectively remain indoors, limiting outdoor movement to only the essentials.
This came shortly after he estimated that approximately 56 percent of Californians — about 22 million people — would become infected by COVID-19 if significant precautions were not taken immediately.
CA is issuing a statewide, mandatory STAY AT HOME order.
Those that work in critical sectors should go to work. Grocery stores, pharmacies, banks and more will stay open.
We need to meet this moment and flatten the curve together.
Go to https://t.co/xtXFwVeWc2 to learn more.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) March 20, 2020
Governor Newsom revealed that statistic in an alarming letter to President Trump, in which he also revealed that “in the last 24 hours, we had 126 new Covid-19 cases, a 21 percent increase. In some parts of our state, the case rate is doubling every four days.”
He said later at a press conference that the state may need around 20,000 hospital beds, which he hoped to address by renting two hospitals at each end of the state and docking a Navy hospital ship near Los Angeles.
“If we meet this moment, we can truly bend the curve to reduce the need to have to go out and to cobble all those assets together,” he said.
At the press conference, he repeated his calls for self isolation, “I don’t believe the people of California need to be told by law enforcement it’s appropriate to home-isolate – go about the essential patterns of life, but do so by socially distancing yourselves from others and using common sense.”
President Trump has ordered for Navy hospital ships to be deployed to coronavirus “hot spots,” including the New York Harbor.
As of Thursday evening, California had 1,030 confirmed cases and 18 deaths. Despite the “shelter at home” order, residents are still permitted to leave home for essential actives like grocery shopping, picking up food, doing laundry, getting gas, visiting the bank, and picking up medication.
