LA closes back down, no school in fall

On Monday, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that 30 counties, including many in southern California, must close fitness centres and indoor activities, offices for non-essential sectors, places of warship, barbershops, hair salons and indoor malls, reports KTLA5.

Newsom also required that all counties close wineries, indoor operations at restaurants, tasting rooms, family entertaining centres, museums, zoos, and that all bars must be shuttered.

This news follows a spike in coronavirus cases throughout the United States. Positivity rates are now at 7.4 percent in California.

The state has conducted more that 5.4 million tests, for a total of 335,174 cases, of which 239,893 are active. There have been 7,084 deaths.

Newsom has previously said that a "dimmer switch" can be applied on reopening.

"This virus is not going away anytime soon," said Newsom while announcing the rollbacks.

Los Angeles and San Diego school districts also announced in a joint decision that all of their learning will be done remotely in the coming school year.

The two school districts announced the decision at a press conference on Monday.

The school year was set to begin on Aug. 18  but will now be transferred to online learning. The LA unified school district is the second largest in the US with approximately 700,000 students.

The 30 counties that are currently on California’s watchlist represent 80 percent of the state, said Newsom. He said he anticipated that more counties will join this list of those for which reopening measure will be rolled back.

He also noted that the state will have to work on curbing the spread of the coronavirus until a vaccine or therapy is available. This indicates that the Newsom administration may be preparing some long-term changes.