Data shows some Californians heeded stay-home order on New Year’s Eve, Gavin Newsom says
Data shows some Californians heeded stay-home orders on New Year’s Eve, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday, but deaths have reached new daily records and officials are still bracing themselves for an increase in coronavirus cases after the holidays.
Mobility data for New Years Eve was down 23% compared to pre-pandemic months last year, Newsom said. That’s the most mobility has been down since late March, Newsom said, when he first enacted the state’s stay-at-home order.
California’s hospitalization and test positivity rates have plateaued in recent weeks, although they continue to be the highest the state has seen since the spring.
Newsom said during a Monday press conference that the plateau doesn’t mean California is out of the woods. Instead, Newsom described it as “a lull before a surge, on top of a surge” fueled by people gathering over the holidays that will drive up coronavirus numbers over the coming days and weeks.
In the meantime, the state’s death rate has reached a record high. On average, 336 Californians died of coronavirus each day last week, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.
In recent days, ambulances have had to wait seven hours hours to transfer patients into overcrowded hospitals in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Over the holiday weekend, the Newsom administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent emergency teams to upgrade oxygen delivery systems at six Southern California hospitals running out of oxygen capacity.
Newsom said the state has increased enforcement to “reach out to bars and restaurants that are still operating but not operating appropriately” and cracking down on large events. The state’s focus has been on educating, not punishing, businesses that aren’t following the state’s coronavirus orders, Newsom said.
Just after Newsom finished his press conference, state Sen. Steve Glazer, a Democrat from Orinda who has urged Newsom to beef up COVID-19 restrictions, wrote on Twitter that the state needs more enforcement. Although he said he supported education over punishment in the early days of the pandemic, “now we are past that graciousness.”
“If we don’t have firm enforcement, the order is meaningless,” Glazer wrote. “Law abiding people are getting pissed. Plus, it’s elongating the negative impacts!”
Meanwhile, some Republicans in the Legislature are advocating for the opposite approach. On Monday morning, state Sen. Melissa Melendez announced she had introduced a bill to prohibit state departments from penalizing small businesses for violating the state’s coronavirus orders.
“Business owners are draining their finances to comply with COVID regulations, and the Governor has continued to change the rules with no data to support his mandates. Now small businesses are facing fines and penalties as they try to stay afloat and keep their lifelong dreams alive,” the Lake Elsinore Republican wrote in a statement. “Enough is enough; this unilateral control needs to come to an end!”
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 3:25 PM with the headline "Data shows some Californians heeded stay-home order on New Year’s Eve, Gavin Newsom says."