Newsom Asks Imperial County To Reinstate Stay-At-Home Orders As COVID Hospitalizations Jump
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) - A week before the Fourth of July getaway weekend, state officials are asking Imperial County to reinstate stay-at-home orders after warning that a surge of coronavirus cases threatens the hospital system.
Gov. Gavin Newsom gave the warning Friday after announcing a 3.3% jump in the number of hospitalizations and a 4.4% daily spike in the number of people in ICU beds, according to state figures.
Saying Imperial County would "need to decompress their hospital system," Newsom said the case rate per 100,000 there stands at over 630 - well above the 100 cases per 100,000 threshold established by the state for reopening.
According to Newsom, the county's test positivity rate over 14 days is around 23%. About 8% of total hospital space was in use after new beds were brought online, the governor said.
While Newsom signaled he would defer to county officials to take the appropriate steps, if they fail to curb transmission, Newsom said "I am committed to intervening."
Despite the summer heat, states like Texas, Arizona, and Florida have seen sharp jumps in their respective number of coronavirus cases.
The governor on Friday also predicted California would see a spike in death rates in the coming days.
"And you will see, mark my words ... with the death rates, they're lagging. You will see that these positivity rates going up in the last week or two, that in the next week or two you will start to see numbers increase not just in the hospitals ... but you'll start seeing that tragically in the number of lives lost.
"And it's not just 80- and 90-year-olds that are losing their lives. It's not just 65 years old and older that are getting positive test results back. So please, even if you don't feel sick, you may be transmitting this disease.''
When the pandemic began in March, Newsom wrote a letter to President Donald Trump warning more than half of the state - roughly 25 million people - could be infected with COVID-19 by the end of May.
As of June 26, there were 202,017 confirmed cases statewide - a fraction of the number cited by Newsom.
