Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti cautioned residents that they might be under fresh stay-at-home orders in the next couple of weeks, should coronavirus cases continue to surge.
“COVID-19 hasn’t gone away. In fact, it’s gotten worse,” Garcetti warned Wednesday evening during a news conference. The mayor noted that much has been learned about the coronavirus since March that has helped with stopping the spread but emphasized that “making sure we don’t have to go farther and close more businesses requires an individual commitment of each and every one of us.”
Los Angeles County has had more than 123,000 confirmed cases of the virus and at least 3,642 deaths since the pandemic began, according to the latest tally by the New York Times. The city uses a color-coded system to evaluate the relative coronavirus risk, which is currently at the orange level of very high risk.
“If things get worse, that dial could move to red in this coming week or two,” Garcetti said. “That would place us at the highest risk of infection, and we’d likely return to a mandated safer-at-home order. But, if things get better, we’ll see that dial back down to yellow, indicating we’re successfully flattening the curve again.”
Garcetti’s warning comes as states, and the United States as a whole, have shattered single-day records for new cases. Across the board, the U.S. has had more than 3 million coronavirus infections and at least 132,000 deaths, numbers that are continuing to increase as states have emerged from their respective lockdowns.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the nation’s leading expert on the virus, warned on Thursday that states experiencing large coronavirus outbreaks might need to consider shutting back down.
“What we are seeing is exponential growth. It went from an average of about 20,000 to 40,000 and 50,000. That’s doubling. If you continue doubling, two times 50 is 100,” he said. “Any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down. It’s not for me to say because each state is different.”
