#CALIFORNIA TOTAL LOCKDOWN FULL#

When state officials recently announced that the state would expand vaccine eligibility to anyone 16 and older starting April 15, Dr. Now, as the focus has turned to the state’s vaccine rollout, Californians have been frustrated with what they’ve seen as a confusing and chaotic effort.

By December, hospitals - especially in hard-hit areas, like Los Angeles - were overwhelmed with patients, and the state ordered Californians to stay at home again. Newsom and other state leaders emphasized that the state needed to have the ability to quickly reimpose emergency measures if hospitals started to fill up.Īround Thanksgiving, there were signs that public health officials’ worst fears would be realized. They’ve been both widely criticized as confusing and credited with saving uncounted lives. The Newsom administration’s reopening strategies changed frequently and have been implemented piecemeal across the state’s 58 counties.

#CALIFORNIA TOTAL LOCKDOWN FULL#

Since then, California has toggled among various levels of restriction as cases have surged, receded and then surged again, overwhelming hospitals in the winter, even as other states have allowed full reopenings. Over the past year, California has become a high-profile case study of the ways in which reopening a vast economy can be more complex, unequal and politically fraught than shutting one down.Ĭalifornia was the first state to implement a stay-at-home order last year, on March 19, plunging the state’s 40 million residents into the nation’s largest experiment in preventing transmission of the virus.

The state will, however, keep in place a mask mandate for the foreseeable future, and there will be some limits on large indoor events or conventions of more than 5,000 people at least until fall.

California total lockdown