'Safer At Home' Order Issued Across Los Angeles Amid Coronavirus

LOS ANGELES, CA — Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a citywide "Safer At Home" order Thursday, which appears to amount to a shelter-in-place order, shutting down all nonessential businesses due to the coronavirus. The order will take effect at 11:59 p.m. Friday. Los Angeles County issued a similar order that shuts down nonessential retail businesses.

The LA city and county orders differ slightly with the city ordering people to remain in their homes, a step further than the county. The city is banning all gatherings and the county banning gatherings of 10 or more.

Calling it "Safer At Home" order, Los Angeles County officials called on people to remain at home as much as possible in response to the coronavirus. The order allows for health-care, government and food-industry employees to continue going to work, but others are being encouraged to stay home.

"We can not wait. We must act now," Garcetti said.

"We are about to enter into new way of living in Los Angeles for a period," Garcetti said. "Today is a day that will be seared into the story and the streets of this city. It will be a moment when everything changes."

The announcement came as a second Los Angeles County resident died from the coronavirus, a 34-year-old man. On Thursday, the overall number of cases increased by 42, countywide, which is actually slightly less than the day before.

"The data is crystal clear," he said. "The evidence is that the steps we've taken since Sunday are working...We can see it in the air. We can feel it in the empty streets."

The countywide total now stands at 231 cases, according to the Department of Public Health.

“We know this will have an impact on the social fabric of our communities. We still encourage individuals to stay connected to their community and their loved ones in creative ways, and to spend much-needed time outdoors. We won’t have to maintain these restrictions forever, and they will have an invaluable long-term impact," Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a statement.

The order is not the same as the shelter-in place restrictions affecting Northern California, which requires all non-essential businesses to close.

Garcetti further clarified just what a "Safer At Home" order means.

"All businesses, including museums, malls, retail stores, for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations must stop operations that require workers to be present in person. And no public and private gatherings of any size that would occur outside of a single home will be allowed, with clear exceptions. I want to be clear about this, that the only time you should leave your home is for essential activities and needs -- to get food, care for a relative or friend or a child, get necessary healthcare, go for a walk in the neighborhood," he said.

"I think there's been terrible terms out there, like lockdown. Nobody is locked down. We encourage you not to be locked down. This is not shelter-in-place like a school shooting. This is stay at home," he added. "Because you're safer at home. The only people who should be leaving home and going out are those whose jobs are critical to the safety, the health and security of the city, as well as the economy of recovery for us and the nation during this crisis."

Also on Thursday, Gov. Newsom requested a navy hospital to be docked at the Port Of Los Angeles to accommodate the outbreak, which he predicted could infect most of the population.
In his letter, Newsom wrote that deploying the Mercy, which is based in San Diego, would help ease the demand on the Southland health-care system. He called for the "immediate deployment" of the ship and asked that it remain at the Port of Los Angeles through Sept. 1.

"As you know, California has been disproportionately impacted by repatriation efforts over the last few months," Newsom wrote. "Our state and health care delivery system are significantly impacted by the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases. In the last 24 hours, we had 126 new COVID-19 cases, a 21 percent increase. In some parts of our state, our case rate is doubling every four days. Moreover, we have community acquired transmission in 23 counties with an increase of 44 community acquired infections in 24 hours. We project that roughly 56 percent of our population -- 25.5 million people -- will be infected with the virus over an eight-week period."

THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY. PLEASE REFRESH THE SCREEN FOR UPDATES.

City News Service contributed to this report.