On Thursday, 3rd December 2020, due to escalating COVID cases, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a three-week stay-at-home order. This will limit physical activities over the holidays.
Sources report California’s highest COVID case count yet, with 20,759 new cases within 24 hours. The state also sees ICU admissions and hospitalizations increasing. Recent weeks show a spike of 67%, with a record of 530 ICU admissions. Death rates are rising too.
During a midday news conference, Governor Newsom stated: “The bottom line is, if we don’t act now, our hospital system will be overwhelmed. If we don’t act now, we’ll continue to see our death rate climb, more lives lost.” He highlighted that state-reported deaths had risen from just 14 on Nov. 2 to 113 on recent consecutive days, totaling nearly 1,000 fatalities in the last four days.
The stay-at-home order comes into effect when ICU capacity in a region falls below 15%. It stays for at least three weeks and lifts when projected ICU capacity hits or surpasses 15%.
Affected regions include Northern California, Greater Sacramento, Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, and Southern California.
What Are the Social Impacts of the Stay at Home Orders
With this order, certain facilities and activities will be closed while others will open. The closures include Movie theaters, in-person dining, family entertainment centers, indoor/outdoor playgrounds, hair/barbing salons, museums, zoos, and aquariums.
Certain activities can still go on as usual but with restrictions. For example:
- Professional sports centers can operate but without live audiences.
- Places of worship can still hold outdoor services.
- Malls and shops can open but with a 20% capacity, no drinking or eating inside the stores.
- Outdoor recreational facilities can open, but without food, drinks, and overnight camping.
- Hotels could only open for critical service support
For schools, K-12 schools won’t be affected, including classrooms that operate in-person classroom instructions.
Gov. Newman urged residents not to connect with anyone outside their households virtually but still recommended physical activities like walking the dogs, yoga, fishing, running, skiing or biking.
Get Tenting and Outdoor Builds for Your Places of Worship/Business During Stay At Home Orders
Many activities would require that you set up an outdoor build, for example, your places of worship, while maintaining the CDC event guidelines.
At Choura, we’re skilled at creating temporary structures for your outdoor events. So, if you need tenting for places of worship, heating solutions, and help handling your event production in Southern California, talk to us here.
