Governor Gavin Newsom announced Monday that counties on the state’s watch list, which includes Riverside County, will have to close more indoor operations.
The list of sectors affected includes gyms, worship services, personal care services, hair and barber shops, shopping malls and offices for non-critical sectors.
Order affects 30 counties in pandemic state monitoring
list, including Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.
Shelby Nelson and Jake Ingrassia of News Channel 3 will have more information on the new closings tonight at 5 and 6 pm
Effective immediately, CA is closing some statewide inland business operations and additional inland business operations in @CAPublicHealth Monitoring List counties for 3 consecutive days.
📍 Find the updated list of counties here: https://t.co/snYe5v55Rw pic.twitter.com/W3wBJp2ap5
– California Governor’s Office (@CAgovernor) July 13, 2020
Newsom also ordered the state shutdown of indoor operations in restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, zoos, aquariums, family entertainment centers and arcades, and the complete closure of all bars. Those restrictions were already in place in the counties on the state’s watch list, but the new order extended them to the entire state.
Newsom reiterated that the state’s enactment of sanitary restrictions was being handled with a "dimmer switch," meaning the severity of the orders can be adjusted upward or downward based on the latest virus statistics and “trend lines”.
The state has been seeing a record number of infections in the past few days, along with increasing hospitalizations. As of Monday, Newsom said 6,485 were hospitalized across the state due to the coronavirus. The seven-day average of people who tested positive for the virus was 7.7%, Newsom said.
More counties are expected to be added to the state’s watch list on Tuesday, Newsom announced.
As for Riverside County, health officials are expected to release updated data Monday afternoon on the number of COVID-19 cases and the impact of the pandemic.
On Friday, county officials said there were 1,431 new cases of coronavirus in just one day. That was the third consecutive day of a record number of new cases.
Also on Friday, Riverside County reached 100% bed utilization in the ICU. As of Sunday, the number dropped to 95.6%.
This does not mean that the ICU has reached capacity only in patients with coronavirus. There are a total of 385 ICU beds currently in use throughout Riverside County. 116 of those beds were being used by people with coronaviruses.
On Friday, the county reported one fewer coronavirus patient in the ICU compared to Thursday.
In total as of Friday, July 10, there are 526 hospitalized patients with coronavirus, with 116 of those patients in the ICU.
The most recent data provided by local hospitals shows that the majority have reached the highest total number of patients with coronavirus.
News Channel 3’s Madison Weil spoke to local health workers about how to deal with the physical and emotional impact of working amid a surge.
Earlier this week, Peter Daut of News Channel 3 received an update on the state of local hospitals from the Medical Director of Eisenhower Health and the medical director of emergency operations for the Desert Care Network.
The county has also continuously broken the single-day surge in cases for three days now. On Friday, there were 1,432 new cases of coronavirus.
Click here to see a complete breakdown of cases in each city and community in the Coachella Valley.
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