By Aaron Miller-
The governor of California has announced further measures to combat the surge in coronavirus by shutting down a range of activities in the town.
Bars in the city have been ordered to close both indoor and outdoor operations.Gavin Newsom confirmed that indoor activities at restaurants, wineries, cinemas, family entertainment centres, zoos and museums would be banned for the next three weeks.
Parking lots at state beaches on the Sonoma Coast are also to be closed during the Fourth of July holiday weekend, as part of statewide effort to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus to curb the rise of cases across California and the nation
, The closure of parking lots on the Sonoma Coast popular places as Bodega Head, Goat Rock and Salmon Creek beaches, as well as vehicle turnouts will be very disruptive, it is feared. county officials feared.
The closure, announced Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, will start tomorrow, Friday and span the busy holiday weekend. It extends to parking lots in state beaches throughout the Bay Area and in Southern California, where even some of the popular seashore will be off-limits
A Los Angeles County mayor has criticised the move to close the beaches for the weekend.
Suzanne Hadley, mayor of the city of Manhattan Beach, said: “I think everyone agrees on a few things.”
“We agree that the young and healthy are least likely to get COVID, we agree COVID is least likely to be transmitted outdoors and we know that the beach is a wide-open space with lots of social distancing.
“To my mind it does not make a lot of sense to close the beaches where the young and the healthy go to gather.”
Although young and healthy people are much less likely to die from coronavirus, several studies and experts – including the director of the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield – have suggested that younger people have helped fuel the increase in COVID-19 infections.
“I feel that because the numbers are going up and more and more people are realising that they aren’t dropping, closing the beach and the pier is another wake-up call for us,” said Olivia Apodaca.