COVID police! Volunteers will patrol the streets in Pasadena and make sure everyone is wearing a mask outside as parts of California enter a three-week lockdown
A city in California is to employ the use of volunteers to walk the streets to ensure people are wearing face coverings.
The city of Pasadena near Los Angeles will have volunteers walking the city's streets to ensure people have their faces covered and will hand out masks to those who don't.
'This is something that we need to take very seriously, our numbers are significantly increasing daily, hospitalization is going up, the data shows that we're gonna need to shut down more,' Pasadena city spokesperson Lisa Derderian told CBSLA.
Last weekend 75 runners were told they all needed to wear face coverings despite being outside on a nature trail.
The city of Pasadena will have volunteers walking city streets to ensure people are wearing face coverings
Volunteers will walk major streets around Pasadena to hand out masks to those who don’t have them and make sure those who do are wearing them
Around 60 signs posted to remind people to wear masks were removed or vandalized over the last week.
Like much of the rest of California, a limited stay-at-home order was brought in on Friday for Pasadena.
All public and private gatherings and events with people from more than one household are banned - except for faith-based services and protests.
Pasadena is the only city in Los Angeles County which still allows outdoor dining although other cities in LA County have banned the activity.
Strict rules on face masks are in place across the entire state of California
People who aren't wearing masks will be stopped and asked to put one on or be fined
The California Department of Public Health have stated it is mandatory for everyone to wear face coverings when outside unless they are eating or drinking.
Faced with a dire shortage of hospital beds, health officials announced Saturday the vast region of Southern California and a large swath of the Central Valley will be placed under a sweeping new lockdown in an urgent attempt to slow the rapid rise of coronavirus cases.
The California Department of Public Health said the intensive care unit capacity in both regions' hospitals had fallen below a 15% threshold that triggers the new measures, which include strict closures for businesses and new controls on activities. They will take effect Sunday evening and remain in place for at least three weeks, meaning the lockdown will cover the Christmas holiday.
Much of the state is on the brink of the same restrictions. Some regions have opted to impose them even before the mandate kicks in, including five San Francisco Bay Area counties where the measures also take effect starting Sunday.
Visitors to Old Pasadena dine outdoors along Colorado Boulevard. Pasadena, with its own health department, is still allowing outdoor patio dining
A man swabs his mouth as people wait in line for their Covid-19 test at a mobile pop-up test site in Los Angeles, California
A waiter wears a mask and face covering at a restaurant with outdoor seating which is now banned across California apart from Pasadena
With a new lockdown looming, many rushed out to supermarkets Saturday and lined up outside salons to squeeze in a haircut before the orders in some areas take effect on Sunday.
San Francisco resident Michael Duranceau rushed to a market to prepare.
'I´m just stocking up before Sunday - the basics, bread, eggs,' he told KGO-TV, clutching a heavy grocery bag and a baguette.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the new plan Thursday. It is the most restrictive order since he imposed the country´s first statewide stay-at-home rule in March.
The new order divides the state into five regions and uses ICU capacity as the trigger for closures.
People dine outdoors in Pasadena, California, the only city in Los Angeles County still allowing outdoor service
Pasadena has become an island in the center of the nation's most populous county, where a surge of COVID-19 cases last week led to a three-week end to outdoor dining and California's first stay-home order since the pandemic began to spread across the state in March. The city has its own health department, and can set its own rules, even as Los Angeles County ordered a three-week end to outdoor dining and then a broader stay-home order that took effect
The measures bar all on-site restaurant dining and close hair and nail salons, movie theaters and many other businesses, as well as museums and playgrounds. Newsom also says people may not congregate with anyone outside their household and must always wear masks when they go outside.
The 11-county Southern California region, which includes the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, had only 12.5% of its ICU beds available, the California Department of Public Health reported Saturday. The figure was 8.6% for the San Joaquin Valley region, composed of a dozen counties in the agricultural Central Valley and rural areas of the Sierra Nevada.
Together the two regions are home to more than half of California's population.
'We are at a point where surging cases and hospitalizations are not letting up,' said Dr. Salvador Sandoval, public health officer for the Central Valley city of Merced. 'I can´t emphasize this enough - everyone must take personal steps to protect themselves and protect others.'
The other three regions - Greater Sacramento, Northern California and San Francisco Bay Area - were all around 21% capacity.
California's San Joaquin Valley region, an area that encompasses 12 counties and the city of Fresno, will impose sweeping stay-at-home restrictions as per Governor Gavin Newsom's order. Much of the state, including Southern California, is on the brink of the same restrictions, and five counties in the San Francisco Bay Area have opted to impose them even before the state mandate kicks in
But health officers in five of the Bay Area's 11 counties didn´t wait. On Friday, they adopted the state's stay-at-home order. The changes begin to take effect Sunday night in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Marin, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, as well as the city of Berkeley.
'We don't think we can wait for the state's new restrictions to go into effect. ... This is an emergency,' Contra Costa Health Officer Chris Farnitano said.
'Our biggest fear all along - that we won´t have a bed for you or your mother or your grandmother or grandfather when they get sick - is the reality we´ll be facing unless we slow the spread,' San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.
The Bay Area order will last at least through January 4, a week longer than the state's timeline, and came as the state recorded another daily record number of new cases with 22,018. Hospitalizations topped 9,000 for the first time and ICU patients were at a record 2,152.
The new shutdowns were a gut-wrenching move for small businesses that have struggled to survive over nearly a year in which they were repeatedly ordered to close, then allowed to reopen but with complex safety precautions.
Under Newsom´s order, retail stores and shopping centers can operate with just 20% customer capacity.
Critics say the broad statewide order unfairly lumps too many disparate counties together into regions.
The approach 'places our ability to reopen with 10 other counties including Los Angeles County which has absolutely failed to control the coronavirus and Mono County whose most populous city is 344 miles away,' said Fred M. Whitaker, chairman of the Republican Party of Orange County.
The explosive rise in COVID-19 infections that began in October is being blamed largely on people ignoring safety measures and socializing with others.
Berkeley Health Officer Lisa Hernandez said people should not meet in person with anyone they don't live with, 'even in a small group, and even outdoors with precautions.'
'If you have a social bubble, it is now popped,' Hernandez said. 'Do not let this be the last holiday with your family.'
Los Angeles County, the nation's most populous with 10 million residents, could reach ICU capacity within days. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said that could mean people with other life-threatening illnesses, such as strokes and heart attacks, might be unable to get a bed.
Empty tables are seen outside of a restaurant set up for outdoor dining on Friday in Burbank, California
Chandeliers hangs above a space where outdoor dining had been set up at Flemings Prime Steakhouse in Woodland Hills
A street blocked off for outdoor dining is mostly empty on Friday in Sausalito, California
The city alone could see more than 11,000 lives lost to the virus by year´s end, the mayor said.
'That means 3,000 additional deaths in a single month. To put that in perspective, it's a decade of homicides,' Garcetti said. 'This is the greatest threat to life in Los Angeles that we have ever faced.'
In the inland Central Valley, Fresno County had just 10 of its 150 ICU beds available. Health officials described a grim picture with hospitals struggling to stay staffed because of coronavirus infections and exposures.
One hospital is holding ICU patients in the emergency department until beds open up, Emergency Medical Services Director Daniel Lynch said Friday.
The county has requested help from the state with staffing for a couple of weeks. But so far only one or two additional workers have shown up at three local hospitals as the whole state struggles with staffing.
At Kaweah Delta medical center in Visalia, in Tulare County, there were 18 ICU beds available Friday but only the staff to handle four additional patients, said Keri Noeske, the chief nursing officer. Some 125 employees are out sick or quarantined because of COVID-19.
People dine outdoors at The Trident restaurant on Friday in Sausalito, California
A sign advertises outdoor dining at The Trident restaurant. The health officers in six San Francisco Bay Area regions have issued a new stay-at-home order as the number of virus cases surge and hospitals fill up
An employee at Gucci talks to a man waiting on a socially distanced line of shoppers waiting to enter the luxury designer boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The new stay-at-home order will last at least three weeks, cutting sharply into the most profitable shopping season and threatening financial ruin for businesses already struggling after 10 months of on-again, off-again restrictions and slow sales because of the pandemic
A security guard in a face mask stands outside Cartier jewelry shop with no customers on line during the coronavirus pandemic on Rodeo Drive
A couple dines outdoors at Scoma's restaurant Friday, in Sausalito, California
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