Celebrating Christmas away from the loved ones may have once been just a scenario for apocalyptic movies, but it’s now becoming a reality because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Being as far away as you can from others was just a recommendation at first, but some authorities are practically forced by the desperate worldwide situation to make it mandatory.
According to worldometers.info, the situation in the USA regarding the ongoing pandemic is worsening. There’s a total of over 15 million infections nationwide since the outbreak of the virus, and more than 288,000 people died because of it. Such terrifying data could only force authorities to come up with new ways to fight the coronavirus.
Stay-at-home order for 27 million people during Christmas
Residents of Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley have no choice but to comply with the new rules of the authorities: staying at home through Christmas, as of 11:59 Sunday evening. This means strict closures for many businesses and forbidding the gatherings with people outside the immediate household of each person.
The people in question will have to obey the new rules for at least three weeks, and nobody can guarantee for sure that an extension won’t be necessary.
ICU capacity is under the 15% threshold
The announcement of the terrifyingly low levels of the state’s intensive care capacity comes from Gov. Gavin Newsom himself. He also declared:
We are at a tipping point in our fight against the virus, and we need to take decisive action now to prevent California’s hospital system from being overwhelmed in the coming weeks,
However, he still finds the strength to be optimistic:
we can flatten the curve as we’ve done before and reduce stress on our health care system.
There’s no wonder why such measures are imposed. California is the most affected by the pandemic from all the American states, as it has a total of almost 1.4 million infections and about 20,000 deaths.
