Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued a travel advisory for the state of California as state COVID cases pass 1 million and continue to surge ahead of Thanksgiving.
State officials are asking residents not to travel out of state for the holiday and are recommending that those who do quarantine for at least 14 days when they return.
“California just surpassed a sobering threshold — 1 million COVID-19 cases — with no signs of the virus slowing down,” Newsom said in a statement. “Increased cases are adding pressure on our hospital systems and threatening the lives of seniors, essential workers and vulnerable Californians. Travel increases the risk of spreading COVID-19, and we must all collectively increase our efforts at this time to keep the virus at bay and save lives.”
First, economic reopenings were rolled back in some parts of California, and then came the current travel advisory. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that hard-hit places such as Los Angeles County won’t see their restrictions eased for the foreseeable future as cases continue to surge and that additional restrictions may be put into place for the entire state.
After declining earlier in the fall, California’s weekly cases have doubled in the past month, according to the SDUT. 6,300 new cases are being reported every day which is up from about 3,200 last month, according to a Times analysis.
There has been debate about whether California will need to enact further restrictions if COVID-19 continues to spread—which could be bad news for the state’s 35 ski areas that are only now starting to open for the 20/21 winter season.
According to Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious-disease expert at UC Berkeley who spoke with the San Diego Union-Tribune, the novel coronavirus is likely to swamp California in December, and parts of the state economy will have to be shut down. This could have negative implications for California’s ski industry at large.
