A relatively early closure of businesses and a stay-at-home order tamped down the coronavirus pandemic — and kept hospitalizations well below a feared surge, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday.
At a press briefing, Newsom and Dr. Mark Ghaly, the Secretary of the California Health and Human Services, said without those interventions, projections were for hospitalizations to soar above 700,000, the Mercury News reported.
“People are moving around less and staying at home more compared to this time in February,” Ghaly said. “The comparison is really when we didn’t have things like the stay at home orders, when we didn’t emphasize physical distancing.”
Following a statewide shelter-in-place order issued by Newsom on March 19, California began to prepare for a surge that would allow hospitals to care for 50,000 COVID-19 patients at once.
Ghaly said the number of hospitalizations are “holding onto the bottom part of the model,” the news outlet reported.
“This is actually signaling to us that our peak may not end up being as high as we planned around and expected,” Ghaly said.
“And the difference between what we’re seeing today in our hospitals may not be that much different than where we are going to peak in the many weeks to come.”
Throughout the week, Newsom and Ghaly have reiterated that California’s curve is “bending,” but also “stretching,” which has led state officials to believe the peak numbers of patients hospitalized and requiring care in ICU beds will be lower than initially anticipated - but will also come later than expected.
Newsom said it’s too soon to know whether the state will need to extend its shelter-in-place order beyond May 3.
“Let’s continue to hold the line and let’s just do this together,” Newsom said. “Give us a few more weeks to see where these trend lines go.”
By late Friday, California had reported more than 584 deaths over two and a half months; the state has averaged 43 deaths per day over the last week, with no spike in fatalities.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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