Coronavirus updates: Bay Area issues ‘shelter in place’ order; 2nd Sacramento death

The coronavirus pandemic has brought virtually all elements of public life to a halt in California, where more than 300 people have been infected and at least seven have died.

Authorities in six San Francisco Bay Area counties are expected to announce Monday afternoon a sweeping “shelter in place” order, instructing nearly 7 million residents to stay in their homes and away from others, and permitting only essential functions and businesses to continue operating for the next three weeks.

State and local governments across the U.S. are urging or mandating moratoriums on large public gatherings and are implementing guidelines to increase social distancing in a desperate attempt to slow the spread of the virus, officially designated COVID-19, which as of Monday was closing in on 4,000 confirmed cases nationwide. And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in guidelines released Sunday recommended that no gatherings of more than 50 people, except for work and school, should be held for the next eight weeks.

Gov. Gavin Newsom during a Sunday press conference called for everyone age 65 and older within the state and those with chronic disease to self-isolate in their homes. Newsom also urged all bars, wineries, night clubs and pubs statewide to close temporarily, and for restaurants to reduce their occupancy by half, in an effort to institute “deep social distancing.”

At the time of Newsom’s press conference, there were 335 confirmed cases of coronavirus in California, the governor said.

6 Bay Area counties to ‘shelter in place’

County authorities announced a “shelter in place” order for all residents of San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties.

The directive will take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and last at least three weeks, through April 7. The order will tell residents they may only leave home for essential reasons, and it calls for law enforcement to “ensure compliance” of the order. Homeless people are exempt from the order.

As of Monday, more than half of California’s confirmed COVID-19 cases are in the Bay Area. Santa Clara public health officials had reported more than 115 cases of the coronavirus, San Mateo County reported 41 and San Francisco had surpassed 40.

“This is not the time for half measures,” said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo.

Sacramento County officials plan to communicate with their Bay Area counterparts and will discuss Monday afternoon whether to follow suit.

“This is a fast-moving world; we are evaluating it right now,” said Peter Beilenson, the Sacramento County’s health director. Beilenson said people should not panic. He pointed out that the Bay Area ruling does allow people to go to stores, go to essential health care appointments, and move about publicly, just staying at least 6 feet away from others.

Second death reported in Sacramento County

Sacramento County in a midday Monday update to its coronavirus webpage added one new case and one additional death to the tally. There have now been 33 cases of the coronavirus and two deaths in the county.

The first death in Sacramento County was a woman in her 90s residing at an Elk Grove assisted living home who died last Tuesday. Authorities did not provide identifying details for the second individual, except that this person was also “older than 70 and had underlying health conditions,” according to the county website.

Sacramento mayor reacts to governor. County reports 15 new cases

Mayor Darrell Steinberg told The Sacramento Bee on Sunday that he fully supports Newsom’s executive order.

“Unfortunately, we need to close bars and that means St. Patrick’s Day events need to be canceled,” Steinberg said.

The mayor and city officials had, earlier in the week, encouraged residents to support local restaurants, and as part of a citywide emergency plan eliminated parking meter payments after 4:30 p.m. to encourage people to come downtown.

“We were trying to find a balance several days ago, but this is moving fast,” Steinberg said. “People should not go to restaurants to dine-in. Period. We can work with our restaurants to advertise and facilitate curbside delivery.”

Steinberg during a Sunday press conference that he’d “strongly prefer” the city’s restaurants transition to curbside pickup and delivery.

Sacramento County public health officials on Sunday morning disclosed 15 new coronavirus cases for a total of 32 in the county, up from 17 on Thursday and 11 last Monday. County officials are expected to update the latest case total later Monday.

“The very real short-term sacrifices will also save many lives,” Steinberg said.

First case reported in Nevada County

Northern California’s Nevada County in a news release Monday morning announced its first lab-confirmed case of COVID-19.

The person is an adult who lives in the eastern part of the county and who recently traveled outside the country, according to the news release.

“The person’s close household contacts are under quarantine and have no symptoms at this time,” the county’s public health department said in a statement. “The person was not out in the community while ill.”

Sacramento library system aims to close all branches

Library chief Rivkah Sass said Monday that she will ask the library’s board for permission to shut down all 28 branches in the public library system, which spans Sacramento County.

Sass on Saturday shut down the Martin Luther King Jr. library branch after learning that the spouse of a staff member there had tested positive for the new coronavirus. Eight to 10 staffers there were sent home, she said.

The libraries have remained open, but the system recently announced the suspension of a number of events and programs as a public health measure.

“The risk is very low, and everybody is in a panic right now and I think it’s important not to panic,” Sass said.

The libraries are closed on Mondays, but likely will reopen Tuesday and, possibly, Wednesday, as Sass awaits permission from the board to shut down temporarily, she said. The move would affect 305 staffers, as well as about 100 on-call substitute staff. It has not been determined whether staff would be paid during a closure, she said.

Michelle Obama postponed in Sacramento

It was one of the hottest tickets in Sacramento: Michelle Obama’s book tour at Golden 1 Center.

Now the former first lady’s two appearances at Golden 1, scheduled for April 1, have been postponed indefinitely. The arena’s website said the postponement was made “in accordance with the recommendation of the CDC.”

Obama was to scheduled to appear in Sacramento to promote her memoir, “Becoming.” The first show sold so briskly that a second show was added.

Now Obama follows a growing list of events at the downtown arena that have been put off: Cher, Celine Dion, teen pop star JoJo Siwa and others. The arena also lost two rounds of March Madness after the NCAA cancelled the men’s basketball tournament, and all Kings games until further notice.

Nevada reports first coronavirus death, in Las Vegas area

The Southern Nevada Health District in a news release Monday said there are now 35 cases in Clark County, more than double the 16 patients reported in a Friday update, and that one person has died.

The man who died was in his 60s, had been hospitalized and had underlying medical conditions, according to the health district’s statement.

Las Vegas is the seat of Clark County.

Second case at Elk Grove senior living facility

Carlton Senior Living in Elk Grove confirmed in an email and blog post Sunday that a second resident has tested positive for COVID-19 and is being isolated from other residents there.

Last week, a woman in her 90s living at the facility became Sacramento County’s first coronavirus death.

The facility has about 140 residents, and says it has put in place “rigorous measures” to prevent staff transmission.

K-12 school closures impacting millions of students

Newsom said over the weekend that about 85 percent of the state’s 6 million public school students will be home starting Monday, as all but one large district in the state have closed.

Between Friday and Saturday, every public district in the four-county region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer and Yolo counties announced that they will close. Some closures will last only a week, while others will span about a month, overlapping with planned spring break.

Most of the districts said they would continue offering meals to children while classes are out of session, mostly through drive-up services around the lunch hour.

The mass closures have left parents throughout the state scrambling for child care options. Many school districts either sent students home with large packets of work or registered them for online programs.

The state said it would issue additional guidelines to districts on Tuesday.

Plans to shelter homeless in private hotels, motels

California’s homeless population have become a large concern amid the coronavirus outbreak, due to their vulnerability and the unsanitary conditions of encampments.

Newsom said Sunday that the state will send 450 travel trailers to locations statewide to help shelter many of California’s approximately 108,000 unsheltered homeless. There are an estimated 3,900 unsheltered homeless in Sacramento County.

The plan would convert private motels and hotels into temporary shelters, but Newsom did not specify where the state is sending the trailers.

It was unclear how the measures would impact Sacramento County, but city and county officials plan to meet Monday to discuss the governor’s instructions, county spokeswoman Kim Nava said.

Casinos close in California, Las Vegas

Cache Creek Casino Resort on Sunday evening announced it will close temporarily, becoming the first tribal casino in Northern California to close during the coronavirus crisis.

Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln announced early Monday that it will lay off 85 of its approximately 2,500 workers as it shrinks operations considerably in response to the coronavirus. Thunder Valley’s measures include postponing concerts for the remainder of March, closing its buffet, postponing a World Poker Tour DeepStacks series of tournaments with $1 million total prize pool, cutting the number of available slot machines in half, and cutting seating in its bingo room down from 600 to 225 people.

Table Mountain Casino in Fresno County also says it will shut down at 6 p.m. Monday through at least the end of March.

The San Manuel and Pechanga resorts in Southern California said Saturday that they are suspending operations.

Because California’s tribes have sovereign legal status, tribal casinos have had wider latitude in staying open amid the coronavirus crisis. In addition to Thunder Valley, some casinos in the greater Sacramento area have remained open but have announced changes or restrictions, such as Red Hawk Casino in Shingle Springs closing its buffet Wednesday.

In the weekend’s biggest gambling closure in the U.S., MGM Resorts International said Sunday that all of its Las Vegas properties would close until further notice starting Tuesday.

MGM operates the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Luxor, New York-New York, Excalibur, and Park MGM and has part ownership of several other Vegas properties.

Dentists told to scale back

The California Dental Association on Monday morning said it “strongly recommends that dentists practicing in California voluntarily suspend nonessential or non-urgent dental care for the next 14 days. As always, it is expected that dentists will continue to be available as needed for emergency care and services.”

The group said it did not take its request lightly, “and it is being done out of an abundance of caution during this historic public health emergency. As health care professionals, we all have a role to play in “flattening the curve” in order to follow sound, scientific public health advice to help limit infections and slow the spread of the virus.”

“We believe by taking these extraordinary precautions, dentists can make a difference in helping to preserve the limited supply of personal protective equipment critical for emergency dental care and frontline health care personnel responding to the pandemic.”

Where do the coronavirus numbers stand?

The worldwide infection total for COVID-19 was closing in on 180,000 as of early Monday afteroon with more than 7,000 deaths reported, according to a map and data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

About 4,200 of the cases are in the United States. Once the vast majority, China now makes up less than half of the world’s total with 81,000 cases. Italy has nearly 28,000 cases with over 2,100 deaths. South Korea has more than 8,200 cases, and Iran has about 15,000 cases and more than 850 deaths. France had more than 5,000, ermany had surpassd 7,000 and Spain was nearing 10,000 cases, all as of midday Monday.

More than 70 people died in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins and California counties: 42 in Washington state; eight in New York; seven in California; five in Florida; two in New Jersey and in Louisiana; and one in each of Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota and Virginia.

Of California’s 335 cases, the figure listed on the state Public Health Department website as of 1 p.m. Monday, 311 are not related to repatriation flights. State public health officials say 70 of those 311 are travel-related, 68 were transmitted from a known patient, 82 were community acquired and another 91 cases remain under investigation.

What is COVID-19? How does the coronavirus spread?

Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within six feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby. The CDC says it’s possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”

Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Most develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.

Sacramento Bee reporters Sophia Bollag, Theresa Clift, Benjy Egel, Dale Kasler, Vincent Moleski, Sawsan Morrar, Ryan Sabalow, Sam Stanton, Wes Venteicher and Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks contributed to this report.