SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered a reopening rollback as COVID-19 cases continue to surge across the Golden State. Impacted businesses include indoor dining restaurants and both indoor and outdoor operations at the state’s bars.
Wineries and tasting rooms, movie theaters, family entertainment centers, zoos and museums are also included in the new order unless their operations can be shifted safely outdoors.
The governor said all gyms, places of worship, malls, personal care services, barbershops, salons and “non-critical” offices in counties on the state’s “monitoring list” also had to shut down again under the new order.
More than 30 counties, home to about 80 percent of California’s population, are currently on the governor’s watch list, including Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Merced. Last week, Newsom ordered bars and indoor restaurants in Madera County to close again after spiking local cases landed the county on the governor’s watch list too.
The new, wider closure order is effective immediately, Newsom said at Monday’s press conference.
Meanwhile, new cases across the state are up nearly 50 percent since the start of July, with California hospitals reporting a 28 percent spike in COVID-19 patients in the last two weeks.
In response to the surge, Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified school districts issued a joint statement Monday announcing their classes will all be online when the new school year starts this fall.
In the statement, school district officials said much of the research surrounding COVID-19’s impact on children is still unknown and many of the guidelines for reopening are “vague and contradictory.”
