LA bans in-person dining for three weeks amid a surge in COVID cases

Los Angeles County on Sunday banned in-person dining for three weeks amid a surge in coronavirus cases less than 24 hours after they imposed a 10pm curfew.

The order will take effect Wednesday at 10pm, officials said. Restaurants, breweries, wineries and bars will only be able to offer takeout, drive-thru and delivery services.

Officials said: ‘To reduce the possibility for crowding and the potential for exposures in settings where people are not wearing their face coverings, restaurants, breweries, wineries and bars will only be able to offer take-out, drive thru, and delivery services.

‘Wineries and breweries may continue their retail operations adhering to current protocols. In person dining will not be allowed, at minimum, for the next 3 weeks.’

Officials had warned that these restrictions could come if the county’s five-day average of new cases was above 4,000 or hospitalizations were more than 1,750 per day. Sunday’s five-day average was 4,097 cases and there were 1,401 hospitalizations.

The new restrictions in Los Angeles County — the nation’s most populous — came as the California Department of Health and Human Services reported more than 15,000 coronavirus cases statewide Saturday — by far the highest level since the pandemic began in March. Another 14,000 cases were recorded Sunday.

California governor Gavin Newsom drew fire last week for apparently flouting the very social distancing rules that he has urged Californians to follow assiduously to curb a spiking COVID-19 infection rate.

Newsom said this week he made a ‘bad mistake’ by attending a friend’s birthday dinner on November 6 at the ritzy French Laundry restaurant in Napa County. He apologized and described the dinner as outdoors.

But photos obtained by the Fox 11 TV station in Los Angeles show Newsom and his wife sitting maskless around a crowded table of 12 – including several lobbyists – inside a room that was enclosed on three sides.

Authorities said Saturday that coronavirus cases threaten to swamp health care systems in California.

LA county accounts for a quarter of the state’s 40 million residents, but it has about a third of the coronavirus cases and close to 40 per cent of the deaths.

Restrictions announced Saturday across California had already required people to stay home from 10pm to 5am unless they are responding to an emergency, shopping for groceries, picking up takeout or walking their dogs.

Authorities say the focus is on keeping people from social mixing and drinking — the kinds of activities that are blamed for causing COVID-19 infections to soar after dipping only a few months ago.

California as a whole has seen more than 1 million infections, with a record of almost 15,500 new cases reported Friday. More than 12.2 million Americans have tested positive for the virus; 256,745 have died.

Officials hope to avoid full-on lockdown orders of the kind enacted back when the COVID-19 pandemic was gaining steam in March.

Public health officials since then have reacted to swings in infection rates by easing and then reinforcing various stay-at-home orders in an effort to balance safety and the economy.

The result, however, has been confusion and what some health officials term ‘COVID fatigue’ in which people simply become tired of the rules and let down their guard.

California’s average daily number of coronavirus cases has tripled in the last month, the Los Angeles Times found in an analysis, while COVID-19 hospitalizations have doubled in the same time period.

The state 10pm curfew applies to 41 of the state’s 58 counties that are in the ‘purple’ tier, the most restrictive of four tiers allowing various stages of economic reopening. Those counties encompass 94 per cent of the nearly 40 million people living in the most populous US state.

Sabrina Urias, general manager of Old Wagon Saloon & Grill in downtown San Jose, told The San Francisco Chronicle that the curfew will likely affect the business’s busiest hours in the late evening.

‘We’re here every day. We see people breaking these rules, and we’re trying our best to enforce it. We see people not wearing a mask,’ she said.

‘So unless you deal with (the) public, you won’t understand this. It’s frustrating for us — our hours got cut. But if everybody would just follow the rules that are given to us for ourselves and our family, customers and everything, I truly believe that there will be a better outcome.’

A group gathered in Huntington Beach at 10:01 p.m. Saturday night in defiance of the curfew, waving American flags and not wearing masks.

More than 100 people rallied Saturday in downtown Fresno, urging Gov. Newsom to ‘open California safely.’