![]() (Though it was only down by 3 percent in Los Angeles, so not every place in California acted the same.)Īs March began in New York, officials were encouraging people to go about their business. Restaurant data from OpenTable suggests that seated dining on March 1 was down 2 percent in New York City, but it was down 18 percent in San Francisco. ![]() Andrew Cuomo said he didn’t believe it would work if only one city did it.)Īnd there’s evidence that social distancing was taken more seriously in some parts of California even before it was government-mandated. (New York City didn’t implement its own order beforehand Gov. New York, meanwhile, didn’t impose a statewide stay-at-home order until March 22. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Los Angeles County has closed all beaches as a new measure to stem the spread of Covid-19. Officials in seven San Francisco Bay Area counties have announced plans to extend the shelter in place order until May 1. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order three days later. The San Francisco Bay Area issued America’s first regional shelter-in-place order on March 16, and California Gov. “There’s the possibility that there were just more introductions of the virus in the East Coast, in the New York area,” Jeffrey Martin, an epidemiologist at the University of California San Francisco, told me.īut California also acted more quickly than New York once it became clear that coronavirus was starting to spread in the US. New York City also has higher rates of public transportation use than any other big city in the US, which could have helped spread the virus in public settings.Īnd New York state has tested people at more than four times the rate of California, which could partly, though not mostly, explain the difference between both states’ reported cases and deaths.Ī big factor - perhaps the biggest - is also chance. One is the density of their largest cities: New York City is the densest city in the US (though San Francisco is second), and a lot of people packed closely together makes it easier for the coronavirus to spread. There are other factors at play in the differences between the two states. “Without everyone taking every possible precaution, our numbers can start skyrocketing.” How California has avoided an explosion of coronavirus cases “If you have enough supplies in your home, this would be the week to skip shopping altogether,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said on Monday. Los Angeles County officials said as much, warning about a potential peak in the next two weeks. But to truly avoid a catastrophe like New York’s, experts say, California likely needs to stay at home as much as possible, at least until coronavirus cases appear to drop and proper testing and surveillance are in place to better track and mitigate new outbreak clusters. ![]() With the huge economic harm caused by the coronavirus lockdowns, it can be tempting to ease off social distancing measures early. ![]() It’s also important, experts added, that California remains vigilant. The reactive mentality “has been very much the way this outbreak has been from the beginning.” We “need to shift to a proactive mentality rather than reactive,” Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious diseases physician and emerging leader in biosecurity fellow at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me. If cases in California remain under control while those in New York soar - still a very big if - the experience could carry important lessons for how to deal with Covid-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.Ĭalifornia’s experience likely reflects, at least in part, the value of quick, more proactive action - along the lines of what experts say is needed across the US, even in places that might not feel exposed to coronavirus right now. One factor, though, is that California simply acted more quickly than New York once it became clear that coronavirus was starting to spread in the US. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty ImagesĮxperts say it’s too early to definitively say why California is faring so much better than New York. Hospitals in New York City, which had been especially hard hit by the coronavirus, are facing shortages of beds, ventilators, and protective equipment for medical staff. ![]()
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