On the same day that California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopening for every county in the state due to rampant growth in COVID-19 cases, San Luis Obispo County reported 101 new COVID-19 cases over the past three days, including a record-high of 70 on Saturday.
Newsom ordered all dine-in restaurants, bars, movie theaters, museums and other indoor businesses across the state to close at noon on Monday as COVID-19 cases continue to climb. Newsom did not say how long the business sectors will have to be closed.
“We’ve made this point on multiple occasions and that is, we’re moving back into a modification mode of our original stay-at-home order,” Newsom said during his press briefing. “This continues to be a deadly disease.”
SLO County’s previous high for reporting cases was 44 back on June 30. The County also reported its fifth COVID-19 death on Saturday.
As of Monday, the County’s total was 1,001. Since July 1, the County’s COVID-19 case total has grown by nearly 390 and its COVID-19 death total grew by four.
There are currently 313 active COVID-19 cases in SLO County, a number that includes 12 hospitalizations with six in intensive care.
Paso Robles continues to have the most COVID-19 cases in the county with 244, an increase of 23 since Saturday. Atascadero’s total grew by five to 98; San Miguel added one and is now at 38; and Templeton is at 34 after adding three over the weekend.
California was averaging more than 8,000 new cases a day as of Sunday, more than double what it was a month ago. The state has seen 331,626 cases, the second-highest tally in the nation, and more than 7,000 deaths.
The California businesses ordered to close statewide include indoor operations at restaurants, wineries and tasting rooms, movie theaters, family entertainment centers, zoos and museums, cardrooms and bars. They will be allowed to operate outdoors, if possible, he said.
In addition to the statewide order, Newsom also ordered the closure of indoor operations for fitness centers, worship services, personal care services, malls, offices, hair salons and barbershops for all counties which have been on California’s monitoring list for three or more consecutive days, which represent 80% of the state’s population.
There are now 31 counties on the state’s monitoring list, including San Luis Obispo County, but SLO has not been on the list for three consecutive days.
“In many parts of our state, we’re still seeing an increase in the positivity rate, the community transmission, we’re seeing an increase in the spread of the virus. So that’s why it’s incumbent upon all of us to recognize, soberly, that COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon,” Newsom said.
Newsom’s announcement comes just hours after the state’s two largest school districts, Los Angeles and San Diego, announced they will not reopen for in-person instruction when the 2020-21 academic year begins next month.
