The rates of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions were all trending downward in California in the latest counts, the governor said on Monday.
Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said that despite that good news, the state's Central Valley agricultural region was still being hit hard by the coronavirus. He said the data had yet to reach a point for lifting pandemic restrictions.
"This virus is not going away," Newsom said at a daily coronavirus briefing. "It's not going to take Labor Day weekend off or Halloween off or the holidays off. Until we have a vaccine we are going to be living with this virus."
California, the country'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's seven-day average of infections has dropped more than 21 percent, compared to the previous period, Newsom said, and hospitalizations are down 10 percent in a 14-day average.
California has administered more than 8 million tests for COVID-19, and the rate of positive results has declined 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 and Howard Goller)
