To Battle Virus, 7 California Counties Order Everyone to Stay Home

A drive-through testing site at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco. Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times. Article by Tim Arango, Thomas Fuller, John Eligon and Conor Dougherty. Published March 16, 2020. Updated March 23, 2020.

SACRAMENTO — Across California, as the coronavirus marches through communities, life as everyone understands it in the Golden State is changing dramatically, hour by hour, minute by minute.

The state has begun enacting extreme measures to halt the coronavirus outbreak. On Monday, seven counties around Silicon Valley, one of the hardest-hit areas in the nation, announced a shelter-at-home order that begins Tuesday, which Mayor Sam Liccardo of San Jose said was the strongest directive yet in the United States. Residents, including those living in San Francisco, were told not to go out for three weeks except to meet “essential needs.”

A day earlier, Gov. Gavin Newsom had told all residents older than 65 to stay in their homes. He called for the closure of bars, nightclubs and wineries, and restrictions on restaurants. He banned visits to hospitals and nursing homes unless patients were on the edge of death. He announced plans to buy hotels to house some of the state’s 150,000 homeless people. […]

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