California rolls back reopening of bars, restaurants and indoor venues

California’s governor has ordered the closure of all recently reopened bars and halted indoor operations of restaurants, movie theaters, museums and zoos for the majority of residents following a surge in coronavirus cases.

The order affects 19 counties, amounting to 70% of California’s population, with some of the counties on the governor’s list among the most populous in the state: Los Angeles, Sacramento and Santa Clara.

Related: Arizona orders bars and gyms to close, joining other states in reversing reopening

“The bottom line is the spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning,” Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday.

California has seen 5,898 new cases in the past 24 hours and recorded 110 deaths. The positivity rate over the past 14 days increased from 4.6% two weeks ago to 6%.

Newsom issued the order after much of the state’s economy had cautiously reopened, operating under new guidelines that allowed for social distancing. Newsom noted in the Wednesday briefing that an uptick in cases was to be expected. “As we open our economy, as more people mix, we’re going to see an increase in spread,” he said. “This was anticipated the day we advanced our efforts to curb the spread of this virus.”

But conditions in the 19 counties under the new order require more vigilance, Newsom said, especially ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, when people will want to go out to celebrate.

Ahead of the festivities, he encouraged – but did not order – local jurisdictions to cancel their annual firework displays, as San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento already have. And while Newsom refrained from closing state beaches over the weekend, he will close the parking lots.

“We recognize that all the enforcement in this space is really just about people doing the right thing, which is the default of 99.9% of us,” Newsom said. “We want to do the right thing, we want to be responsible, and at the same time, we want to be respected. I deeply respect people’s liberty, their desire to go back to the way things once were, but I cannot impress on you more that our actions have an impact on other people.”

The counties under Newsom’s order are spread throughout the state and are varied in demographics, industry and landscape.

Imperial county, a small southern block of desert bordering Arizona with a population of 181,000, has seen an elevated transmission rate, possibly from residents traveling to and from Mexico for work and healthcare as well as from an outbreak at a meatpacking facility, according to public health officials. The surge in Fresno county, a rural swath of the Central Valley with a population of 999,000, can most likely be attributed to an outbreak at the Avenal state prison, in addition to several outbreaks at skilled nursing facilities. Solano, a Bay Area county next to Sacramento with a population of 448,000, is experiencing an increase in hospitalizations stemming from a large outbreak among vineyard workers, who live in the area but work in nearby Napa and Sonoma counties.

And Los Angeles county, whose population makes up more than a quarter of the state’s entire population, recently surpassed the 100,000 cases. Los Angeles has been home to the largest number of coronavirus cases in the state since the pandemic began, with public health officials attributing this in part to high levels of testing.

In total, California has had 222,917 cases of coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, and 5,980 deaths.

Newsom’s order comes as governors across the country were forced to pump the brakes on reopening their economies, after five states set record highs in reported cases, and North Carolina and South Carolina set records in hospitalizations.

On Monday, Doug Ducey, Arizona’s governor, ordered bars, nightclubs, gyms, movie theaters and water parks around the state to be closed for at least 30 days. Greg Abbott, Texas’s governor, issued a similar order last week. And on Wednesday, New York City announced it was pulling back on plans to reopen restaurants for indoor dining.