California Gov. Gavin Newsom warned that if the current coronavirus trends hold in the state, he is willing to scale back the state’s reopening process.
“We don’t intend to do that,” Newsom said Monday during a press conference about potentially stalling the reopening process. “We don’t want to do that. But I want to make this clear: We’re prepared to.”
California health officials reported this week that 35% of all new coronavirus cases have come during the last two weeks, accounting for almost 47,000 new infections total.
Newsom said as the state expands its testing capacity, he expects to see the number of new cases rise each day.
California, which reported a record number of COVID-19 tests administered Sunday, was one of the states hardest hit by the pandemic during its early days in the United States. In March, experts predicted the statewide lockdown measures would cost Southern California’s local economies $63 billion.
To date, more than 185,000 Californians have contracted the virus, and nearly 6,000 people have died from the resulting disease.
Nationwide, several states have seen spikes in new cases even as the single-day death rate from the virus fell to a three-month low on Sunday. U.S. health analysts have said the falling death rate amid a ballooning case count is correlated to a higher rate of young people testing positive, including many cases in which patients are asymptomatic.
“If you test more, you will likely pick up more infections,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said recently. “Once you see that the percentage is higher, then you’ve really got to be careful because then you really are seeing additional infections that you weren’t seeing before.”
Newsom echoed Fauci’s analysis.
“The testing is going up and up and up, but that doesn’t tell the entire story,” he said. “We’re starting to see a slight uptick in the positivity rates.”
Last week, Newsom enacted a statewide executive order mandating that all citizens wear masks in “high-risk” settings, such as enclosed spaces, where social distancing is harder to practice.
The state began its first phased reopening in May, and several counties are being monitored following upticks in cases and positivity rates.
