California’s government has indefinitely extends lockdown in Southern California and San Joaquin Valley after the state’s ICU capacity got to 0%. The situation got so bad that most hospitals started using gift shops and cafeterias as rooms and turning away 911 calls.
The state’s top health official Dr. Mark Ghaly, in his statement, compared the healthcare situation to a rubber band, he said, “You can certainly stretch rubber bands pretty far — as we are pushing our hospitals pretty far — but we know that the stretch has a limit before it breaks,”
California, on Monday, 28th December, 2020, recorded its highest coronavirus cases in 24 hours with 66811. These numbers include backlogs from the Christmas weekend in the state, where some counties didn’t turn in their results. But still, the lower ICU capacity situation still stands.
The regions California extends lockdown untill their ICU capacity exceeds or are equal to 15%
According abc7, the remaining ICU capacity in each region as of Tuesday are,
- Northern California: 27.9%
- Bay Area: 10.4%
- Greater Sacramento: 19.1%
- San Joaquin Valley: 0%
- Southern California: 0%
Greater Sacramento and Bay Area can exit the stay-at-home order on January 1st and January 8th respectively, based on Governor Newsom’s previous orders for reopening.
See the California reopening tracker here
Dr. Ghaly spoke further on the situation and said, “Much of what we’re dealing with is avoidable. Much of what we’re seeing can be stopped if we collectively make decisions to stop it and those decisions are to wear our masks, stay at home in this critical time, when we do go out make sure we remain socially distanced and don’t see anyone outside our households,” Ghaly said.
“As we go into the New Years weekend, do as much as you can. Decide to celebrate virtually. Make a decision to help yourself and help us stop this surge,” he said
The California extended lockdown will cause wineries, bars, personal service stores and barbershops to be temporarily closed in those areas.
For more information and local testing locations in Southern California please contact us HERE.
Sources:
https://abc7.com/health/2-regions-stay-at-home-orders-extended-indefinitely/9172131/
https://covid19.ca.gov/stay-home-except-for-essential-needs/#regional-stay-home-order
https://view.ceros.com/abc/california-reopening-tracker/p/1