California Closes Bars, Indoor Restaurants

As the pandemic intensifies in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he is closing all bars and all indoor restaurants statewide.

The news comes against the backdrop that the novel coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 570,000 people worldwide.

Also among the indoor businesses that must close in California are: wineries, movie theaters, zoos, museums, family entertainment centers and card rooms.

Thirty-one counties, including Riverside County,  will now be required to close indoor operations for gyms, malls, places of worship, personal care services, hair services and non-critical offices.

The state has identified five factors contributing to a rise in cases in Riverside County: outbreaks at prisons and nursing homes; large public protests where people weren’t wearing face coverings; patients coming from Imperial County for treatment; patients coming from Northern Baja California for treatment; and an increase in social gatherings. In addition to increasing testing, the county is being told to educate residents on the importance of wearing face coverings.

In counties on the state’s watch list, even more businesses are being required to close their doors. That includes gyms, hair salons, barbershops, other personal care services, indoor malls, offices in non-critical sectors, and places of worship.

As of Monday, 31 counties were on the state’s monitoring list, which represents about 80% of the state’s population.

“We’ve made this point on multiple occasions and that is we’re moving back into a modification mode of our original stay-at-home order,” Newsom said.

Newsom said California is seeing hospitalizations rise, a modest increase in ICU cases, and an increase in the rate of positivity.

More than 12.9 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their nations’ outbreaks.

The United States has become the worst-affected country, with more than 3.3 million diagnosed cases and at least 135,400 deaths.