Newsom: State ‘Days, Not Weeks” Away From Further Openings
Sonora, CA – Governor Gavin Newsom believes the state is getting “very close” to lifting COVID-19 restrictions on more businesses, including the retail, hospitality and restaurant sectors.
The governor made that prediction at his daily briefing on Friday. However, he would not elaborate on those changes just yet, saying those details will come next week. Newsom hinted, “We’re getting very close to making very meaningful augmentations to that stay-at-home order. We said ‘weeks, not months’ about four or five days ago. I want to say ‘many days, not weeks.’ As long as we continue to be prudent and thoughtful in certain modifications, I think we’ll be making some announcements.”
The governor reiterated that social distancing and testing continues to be the key in fighting the virus while cautioning, “The only thing that’s going to hold us back is the spread of this virus. And the only thing that is assured to advance the spread of the virus is thousands of people congregating together, not practicing social distancing or physical distancing.”
The state reached two milestones on Friday, but neither were positive as the state’s number of coronavirus-related deaths topped 2,000 and the total number of positive cases surpassed 50,000. The stats were not all bad though, some were optimistic showing the number of patients in ICUs flattened over the last 24 hours and an overall drop of 2 percent for coronavirus hospitalizations. There was also a significant decrease of 13.9 percent in the number of “persons under investigations” due to the virus.
Regarding these statistics and loosening of restrictions, Newsom added, “No one wants to use the word patience, so I won’t use that word. We’re all impatient and we’re deeply anxious and deeply desirous to start to turn the page and turn the corner. … The data is starting to give us more confidence.”
