On the second full day of California’s unprecedented shelter-at-home order, Gov. Gavin Newsom sharply criticized young people who flocked to parks, beaches and elsewhere and ignored the 6-foot social distancing requirement.
“Those young people are still out there on the beaches thinking it’s time to party. It’s time to grow up, time to wake up,” Newsom said at a Saturday evening news conference. “Time to recognize that it’s not just about the old folks, it’s about your impact on their lives. Don’t be selfish.”
The governor’s effort to curb the pandemic in the nation’s most populous state was by far the most sweeping and was followed Friday by similar announcements in New York and Illinois.
Newsom has said infection rates of the COVID-19 virus are doubling every four days in some areas and projected that 56% of the state’s population — about 22 million people — could contract the virus in the next two months if aggressive prevention isn’t taken.
On Saturday, he ordered spending $42 million in emergency funding to allow the state to lease two hospitals — Seton Medical Center in Daly City and St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles — for three months to provide care for patients with COVID-19.
The emergency fund will also be used to buy or refurbish ventilators, provide more patient transportation service and expand testing capacity at a state laboratory.
California’s 416 hospitals have a combined 78,000 beds for patients, Newsom said, and the state was working to set up 10,000 additional beds by converting hotels and convention centers into quasi hospitals to meet the potential demand. The Santa Clara Convention Center, for example, will accommodate 250 patients with non-COVID-19 illnesses, such as recovery from surgery, to divert them from regular hospitals.
Residents have been told to stay 6 feet (1.8 meters) away from others, not gather in groups and wash their hands frequently. They can go out to get food, fill prescriptions, seek medical care, care for vulnerable relatives or neighbors and get exercise, such as walking.
The Marin County Sheriff’s office shut down access to the Mount Tamalpais Watershed “due to the astronomical amount of people NOT practicing social distancing and home sheltering.” Authorities there said there was back-to-back traffic to coastal attractions and parking lots to beaches were full.
Newsom said he expected social pressure — not policing — to help enforce his stay-at-home order. He said he doesn’t want to shut down parks or beaches, and that National Guard troops will only be deployed to help law enforcement “make sure all our logistics are operational.”
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Associated Press writers Adam Beam, Don Thompson and Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, Stefanie Dazio, Michael R. Blood and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles, Olga R. Rodriguez and Juliet Williams in San Francisco, and Amy Taxin in Orange County contributed to this story.
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The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.
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