California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday said he had ordered beaches in Orange County in the southern part of the state to close, after crowds defied public health guidelines to throng the popular shoreline last weekend, Reuters reported.
The news comes after a memo sent Wednesday evening to California police chiefs said the governor would go further, closing all state and local beaches and parks, a plan Newsom appeared to abandon, Los Angeles Times writes.
The action marks Newsom’s most symbolic response to the pandemic so far as tensions rise over when and how to reopen the state and allow Californians to return to their normal, everyday lives.
After photos of crowded Orange County beaches went viral last weekend, Newsom chastised beachgoers who ignored the state’s restrictions, saying they could prolong the spread of the coronavirus in California and put the health and safety of others at risk.
“Specific issues on some of those beaches have raised alarm bells,” Newsom said. “People that are congregating there, that weren’t practicing physical distancing, that may go back to their community outside of Orange County and may not even know that they contracted the disease and now they put other people at risk, put our hospital system at risk.”
Newsom said Orange County beaches would be reopened soon if the situation improves.
“We want to work very closely with local elected officials, and we’re committed to doing that if we can get some framework and guidelines to get this right. We can reopen very, very quickly but … we’ve got to make sure we get this right,” Newsom said.
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