Governor Newsom Orders 40 Million Californians To Stay At Home As State’s Outbreak Escalates

The New York Times: Gov. Gavin Newsom Of California Orders Californians To Stay At Home
America’s most populous state is ordering its residents to stay indoors. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Thursday ordered Californians — all 40 million of them — to stay in their houses as much as possible in the coming weeks as the state confronts the escalating coronavirus outbreak. The order represents the most drastic measure any governor has taken to control the virus, and a decision that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, which has far more cases than California, has resisted taking. (Arango and Cowan, 3/19)

The Associated Press: 40 Million Californians Ordered To Stay Home To Halt Virus
The move, the most sweeping by any state so far, was an exclamation point at the end of a week of increasingly aggressive moves meant to keep the virus in check by forcing people to stay away from each other as often as possible. “I can assure you home isolation is not my preferred choice, I know it’s not yours, but it’s a necessary one,” Newsom said at an evening news conference streamed on social media. (Ronayne and Thompson, 3/20)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: Newsom Orders All In California To Stay At Home
The mandatory order allows Californians to continue to visit gas stations, pharmacies, grocery stores, farmers markets, food banks, convenience stores, takeout and delivery restaurants, banks and laundromats. People can leave their homes to care for a relative or a friend or seek healthcare services. It exempts workers in 16 federal critical infrastructure sectors, including food and agriculture, healthcare, transportation, energy, financial services, emergency response and others. (Luna, 3/19)

The Wall Street Journal: California Orders Lockdown For State’s 40 Million Residents
In a letter to President Trump, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he estimated 56% of the state’s population, or 25.5 million people, would be infected over an eight-week period. Mr. Newsom sent the letter—asking that a naval hospital ship be deployed to Los Angeles to increase health-care capacity—before the lockdown order. In calling for people to stay home, Mr. Newsom asked the state’s residents to “bend the curve together.” Nearly half of residents in America’s most populous state had already been given stay-at-home orders from local cities and counties, including Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. (Calfas, Stancati and Yap, 3/19)

Politico: Newsom: More Than Half Of California Could Contract Coronavirus With No Mitigation
He had also floated that figure a day earlier in describing California’s efforts to get homeless people into shelters that include trailers and hotels mobilized by the state. If a 56 percent infection rate were to hit California’s current homeless population, that would amount to some 60,000 homeless people. California has so far confirmed 675 positive test results and is bracing for an expected spike in new infections. In addition to asking Trump for use of the naval ship, Newsom wrote to congressional leadership seeking federal assistance to help health care systems manage a “coming surge of patients” and blunt the economic fallout. (White, 3/19)

CNN: California Coronavirus: Governor Orders Nearly 40 Million Residents To Stay Home 
Under the order, essential services such as groceries, pharmacies, gas stations, farmers markets, food banks, convenience stores and delivery restaurants will remain open. So will banks, local government offices that provide services and law enforcement agencies. Nonessential services such as dine-in restaurants, bars, gyms and convention centers will shut down, the governor said. (Karimi and Moon, 3/20)

The Hill: California Projects 56 Percent Of Population Will Be Infected With Coronavirus Over 8-Week Period
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said in a letter to the Trump administration that 56 percent of the state’s population — 25.5 million people — is projected to be infected with the coronavirus over an eight-week period. In the letter, Newsom asked President Trump to deploy the USNS Mercy hospital ship to the port of Los Angeles until September of this year “to help decompress our current healthcare delivery system in the Los Angeles region in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.” (Moreno, 3/19)

Reuters: California Issues ‘Stay Home’ Order; U.S. Death Toll Hits 200
Newsom said his ‘stay at home’ order was essential as modelling showed 56% of California’s 40 million people would contract the virus in the next eight weeks, and require nearly 20,000 more hospital beds than the state could provide. “We are confident the people of California will abide by it, they will meet this moment,” Newsom, a first-term Democrat told a news briefing from the state capital in Sacramento. (Whitcomb and Shepardson, 3/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Order: Gov. Gavin Newsom Tells Californians To Stay At Home
The order is similar to the shelter-in-place rules that Bay Area residents have been living under since Monday, allowing people to visit the grocery store, seek medical care, walk outside and exercise if they maintain social distance from others. It will force countless businesses in the state deemed nonessential to close their doors temporarily. (Koseff and Allday, 3/19)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Unemployment Is Slamming Southern California
In the working-class city of Pico Rivera, Melanie Santos, 26, made ends meet as a substitute math teacher for $120 a day and had an occasional gig dishing food-truck chicken wings. Thirty-seven miles away, in a leafy Pacific Palisades enclave, Louise Sandy, 52, ran a one-woman business baking custom-designed cakes for birthdays and baby showers that sell for as much as $800 each. (Roosevelt and Khouri, 3/19)

Los Angeles Times: Glendora Man, 34, Dies Of Coronavirus Infection After Visiting Disney World, Sources Say
A 34-year-old man who tested positive for the coronavirus infection after visiting Disney World and traveling through Los Angeles International Airport earlier this month died Thursday at a hospital in Pasadena, according to medical and government sources. (Branson-Potts and Winton, 3/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus: As Cases Surge In SF, Residents Comply With Shelter-In-Place; First Homeless Moved To Hotels
San Francisco’s top officials took to a makeshift stage inside the Moscone Center Thursday to reiterate what they’ve told the public every day since the order to shelter in place was handed down this week: “Stay home.”City officials reported 70 coronavirus cases Thursday in San Francisco, up from 51 on Wednesday, a 37% increase. (Fracassa, 3/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Health Care Workers Dealing With Coronavirus Short Of Crucial Face Masks
A nationwide shortage of protective equipment that prompted hospital workers in Seattle to craft their own masks out of supplies bought at Home Depot is also forcing health care workers in the Bay Area to take drastic measures and prepare for the worst, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to grow. Doctors and nurses in Bay Area hospitals are rationing and repeatedly reusing the most-protective masks, known as N-95s, sharing goggles and, in some cases, settling for less protective gear when dealing with patients being treated for coronavirus symptoms. (Fimrite, Cassidy and Gafni, 3/19)