10:12 p.m. ET, November 10, 2020
California surpasses 18,000 coronavirus deaths, nears 1 million cases
From CNN's Sarah Moon and Alexandra Meeks
People wait in line at a coronavirus test site in Los Angeles, California, on November 10.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images
More than 18,000 Californians have now died due to complications from the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, state health officials announced Tuesday, a grim new milestone as cases of Covid-19 surge once again at an alarming rate.
The California Department of Public Health reported 24 new deaths on Tuesday, raising the statewide death toll to 18,001. The US state has reported 977,218 confirmed cases of Covid-19 to date.
California Governor Gavin Newsom warned residents that the state’s coronavirus cases, positivity rates and hospitalizations are all on the rise.
“People are letting their guard down by taking their masks off. They're starting to get together, outside of their household cohorts,” Newsom said at a news conference
San Francisco's uptick: San Francisco is temporarily closing indoor dining and will reduce the capacity of fitness centers and movie theaters to 25% to a rapid and significant increase in Covid-19 cases, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said Tuesday.
Indoor instruction at some high schools will also be paused because the transmission rate among high school students is similar to adults, Breed said. All of the new changes go into effect at 11:59pm Pacific Time on Friday, November 13.
"People have gotten complacent and as a result of this behavior, we're seeing an uptick," Breed said. "As a result of that uptick, it has forced our city to make some very hard decisions to not just pause the reopening efforts, but to roll back some of the gains that we have made."
Since October 2, San Francisco has experienced a 250% increase in Covid-19 cases, according to county health data. The city is averaging nearly 80 new cases a day compared to approximately 32 new daily cases at the end of October.
In a warning to all San Francisco residents, Director of Health Dr. Grant Colfax said the current surge in cases is greater than the rate of increase from the last major surge in the summer when cases peaked on July 19. Colfax said the city's current fall surge will exceed the summer surge if residents are unable to help turn things around.
“This suggests much broader virus transmission and has the potential to be explosive,” Colfax said. “If we stay on our current course of activities and if we do not reverse, it is entirely plausible we face a situation where our health care system becomes overwhelmed and reverses the current progress we’ve made.”