Governor Blasts Beachgoers: “Virus Doesn’t Take the Weekend Off”
California Governor Gavin Newsom spoke out strongly against weekend beachgoers Monday, telling them that packing the state’s beaches is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
Saying “this virus doesn’t take the weekends off,” Newsom admonished the thousands of residents, mainly in Southern California, who took to the beaches this past weekend as summer-like 90 degree heat set in across the region.
Images over the weekend showed thousands crowding onto the few open beaches in the state, including Newport Beach and Huntington Beach in Orange County. While Newsom said the vast majority of state residents are abiding by stay-at-home orders, he underscored that failure to follow social distancing rules while crowding beaches could undermine and reverse the progress made so far against COVID-19.
The governor also announced that two more states, Colorado and Nevada, have joined California, Oregon and Washington in a Western States Coalition aimed at coordinating regional plans to reopen economies and relax stay-at-home restrictions in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Newsom also said that $4.4 billion in unemployment claims had already been distributed since March 15th, in the form of 4.3 million checks to Californians.
He said the rate of claims had slowed somewhat across the state, and he was working with state officials to expand unemployment call center hours to allow more people to file claims, and had assigned hundreds more state employees to work on answering calls and taking claim information.
Author: newsofthenorthbay
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