The governor of California said on Monday that rates of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions were all trending down in the state, according to the latest analysis.
Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in a briefing that despite the state’s Central Valley agricultural region was still being hit hard by the coronavirus and that the data was not yet enough to consider lifting pandemic restrictions.
“This virus is not going away,” Newsom said. “Its not going to take Labor Day weekend off Halloween off or the holidays off. Until we have a vaccine we are going to be living with this virus.”
California, the nation’s most populous state with some 40 million residents, has recorded a total of 514,901 confirmed COVID-19 infections and 9,388 deaths, according to the governor’s office.
The state has administered more than 8 million tests for COVID-19 and has seen the rate of positive results decline to seven percent over the last 14 days, compared to 7.5 percent in the previous two weeks.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Sandra Maler)