California imposes regional stay-at-home order so hospital system doesn't become 'overwhelmed'

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced on Thursday he is imposing a regional stay-at-home order, which will kick in when a county sees its hospital intensive care units fill to more than 85 percent of capacity.

"The bottom line is, if we don't act now, our hospital system will be overwhelmed," Newsom said during a press conference. "If we don't act now, we'll continue to see our death rate climb, more lives lost."

Based on current projections, 23 counties in Southern and Central California — including Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Ventura, and Imperial — could be required to implement the new restrictions as early as Friday, the Los Angeles Times reports. Under the order, nail and hair salons, playgrounds, and family entertainment centers must close and restaurants will only be able to serve take-out food. Retail businesses will only be allowed to have 20 percent of customer capacity inside.

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The rules are designed to stay in place for at least 21 days, and state health officials said after those three weeks, the decision to reopen any closed services and restart activities will be based on four-week projections of a region's ICU capacity, the Times reports. Newsom said the new order is "fundamentally predicated on the need to stop gathering with people outside of your household [and] to do what you can to keep most of your activities outside."

California has averaged nearly 15,000 new coronavirus cases a day over the last week, triple the rate in the last month, and COVID-19 hospitalizations have also tripled over the same time period, the Times reports. Over the last week, the daily death rate has also jumped up 60 percent from mid-November.