Visitors look at the giraffe exhibit Monday at the San Francisco Zoo —the same day California’s governor ordered the state to close indoor activities at restaurants, bars, museums, zoos and movie theaters.
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesCalifornia officials imposed sweeping new restrictions in response to a statewide surge of coronavirus cases, ordering indoor activities in a host of public places to be closed and declaring that students in the state’s two largest school districts wouldn’t return to in-person schooling in the fall.
Monday afternoon, California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back the state’s reopening and ordered an immediate halt to indoor activities in restaurants, bars, museums, zoos and movie theaters, sending businesses hurrying to close up after they had just begun reopening in recent weeks.
Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, enacted further restrictions on activities in counties that are on the state’s monitoring list, which has grown to include 80% of the state’s population.
The news reversed gains in U.S. stocks, which had been sharply higher in earlier trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed slightly up, and the S&P 500 index fell.
Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest after New York City, and the San Diego Unified School District said they would start the school year online for about 800,000 students combined on Aug. 18 for Los Angeles and Aug. 31 for San Diego.
“The skyrocketing infection rates of the past few weeks make it clear the pandemic is not under control,” said a statement issued by both school districts.
California on Monday reported 8,358 new cases and 23 deaths. Daily cases are up over 20% in the last week; deaths are up by more than 10%.
The percentage of daily positive cases in the state was 7.4% over a period of 14 days, and was 7.7% over a week-long period, a signal that infections are edging higher. The state had a seven-day average of 8,211 cases, according to Mr. Newsom, who expressed concerns about the growing number of patients in intensive-care in rural parts of the state. There are 1,833 coronavirus patients in intensive-care units across California.
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
Total U.S. coronavirus cases topped 3.3 million Monday, and the nation’s death toll exceeded 135,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Along with other states, California has seen a sharp increase in confirmed cases and a recent rise in the number of deaths. And a number of states are pulling back on their reopening plans.
On Monday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, ordered a ban on most indoor social gatherings of more than 10 people and said the state would require people to wear masks outside when they can’t properly social distance.
People sign up for Covid-19 testing Monday in Miami Beach, Fla., as the state set daily case records for the new coronavirus.
Photo: Lynne Sladky/Associated PressArizona, Texas, Michigan and Florida have all recently put restrictions on bars to try to limit the virus’s spread among young people. In Florida, 12,343 new infections were reported, the fifth time in a week that it has reported more than 12,000 coronavirus cases in a day.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who last week said she had tested positive for coronavirus, said Monday that her city was “headed in the wrong direction.” She has recommended Atlanta revert to Phase One of its reopening plan and said the city has mandated mask wearing.
Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Lisa Herring is recommending the district start the school year online. She also advocates delaying the start of school to Aug. 24 from Aug. 10. She was presenting her recommendation to the school board Monday.
The rollback in California represents an unwelcome reversal for the state. Through the early months of the outbreak, California largely took a cautious approach and succeeded in keeping its case counts relatively stable.
However, pressure soon began to mount on Mr. Newsom. Several counties began allowing businesses to reopen, in defiance of state rules. Some county sheriffs said they wouldn’t enforce social-distancing regulations. Lawsuits challenged the state’s ban on churches gathering in person.
Sources: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering; the Lancet; Associated Press; U.S. Census
In early May, the state began part one of a phased reopening that allowed counties to reopen in stages, if they hit certain metrics. A number of counties opened bars and other establishments, even while cases were still rising. Case counts went up faster, and haven't slowed since.
While Mr. Newsom’s order applies statewide, it also requires roughly 30 counties on the state’s monitoring list to close indoor operations in other areas like fitness centers, hair salons and barber shops. Mr. Newsom said he expected the list of counties the state is monitoring will grow.
President Trump has demanded school districts open to in-person learning or risk losing federal funding. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has also pushed for reopening. Administration officials have emphasized school’s importance to the economy, saying that keeping them closed presents a challenge to working parents.
But some educators had voiced concern, citing the nationwide surge in new cases, and discussed other options, such as a mix of online and remote learning, or delaying the start of the school year by several weeks.
Visitors, some masked, ride a rollercoaster in Tokyo on Monday. A Japanese amusement park executive recently asked riders to “please scream inside your heart.”
Photo: kazuhiro nogi/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesIn New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday gave the criteria for schools to be reopened. Regions in the fourth phase of reopening, with a daily coronavirus infection rate below 5%, based on a 14-day average, can reopen schools. If a region is above a 9% infection rate on a 7-day average, schools will close, he said. All of New York state is in the fourth phase, except for New York City. A spokeswoman for the city Education Department, which last week announced preliminary plans to open in fall with a mix of in-person and remote learning, said the agency was coordinating with state officials on reopening.
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The Los Angeles and San Diego districts said they would continue planning for a return to in-person learning in the new academic year as public-health conditions allow. The United Teachers Los Angeles union supports the decision to start the school year with online learning. The union said that most of its members responding to an online poll indicated that the district shouldn’t physically reopen schools and should focus on distance learning.
Aurea Montes-Rodriguez, executive vice president of Community Coalition, an advocacy group that seeks to address poverty and violence in South Los Angeles, said district officials must engage parents in identifying more effective remote-learning practices so that children in its highest-need schools don’t fall further behind.
The “continued closure is sobering, but it is the right decision given the surge of Covid-19 cases and the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on communities like South LA,” Ms. Montes-Rodriguez said by email.
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Marisol Rosales, who is raising four children under 12 years old in a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, said she wished school would open with strict safety measures. She said many of her friends were afraid to send children to school. But she works from home as a mediation case manager for a program that diverts youth from the criminal-justice system, and said she couldn’t juggle her job well with supervising her children’s school work.
“They have four different personalities and learning styles and needs,” Ms. Rosales said. “Moving to a hybrid model or all online is really going to affect the children socially and emotionally.”
Some districts and states have pushed back fall openings to better prepare for in-person learning. In Arkansas, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson pushed the school-year start date from Aug. 13 to the week of Aug. 24, but no later than Aug. 26, citing the need to give school districts more time to prepare for the new school year.
—Leslie Brody contributed to this article.
Write to Allison Prang at allison.prang@wsj.com and Tawnell D. Hobbs at Tawnell.Hobbs@wsj.com
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