London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

California officials alarmed by rate of infection

Despite severe ‘shelter in place’ and business-closing orders, state now confirms more than 3,200 cases, a rise of nearly 22 per cent in 24 hours. Health officials fear that trend puts California on a path similar to New York, the country’s worst-hit state

Confirmed cases of coronavirus in California swelled to 3,894 on Thursday, up from 2,662 – alarming state officials who say that the rate of infection is now on par with that of New York, the worst-hit state in the US.

At this rate, they added, cases could overwhelm hospitals in California’s largest cities in a matter of weeks.

“I suspect that it will get worse in California. I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t. The writing is on the wall,” Dr Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and an infectious disease specialist at the University of California San Francisco, said on Thursday.

“Hopefully we won’t see the kind of surge cases they’re seeing in New York right now where they’re running out of ventilators and ICU beds and having to open up stadiums and dormitories to house the ill,” he added.

By Thursday morning, with more than 1,200 additional cases confirmed, it appeared that the officials’ worst fears were being realised. The case numbers increased at a rate of more than 46 per cent, and if the trend continues, said San Francisco Mayor London Breed, her city will require at least 5,000 more hospital beds as well as 1,500 more ventilators.

In Los Angeles, the country’s second largest city, the situation was even more desperate.

“This will not kill most of us,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said, but “it will kill a lot more people than we're used to dying around us”.

California’s cases are still dwarfed by New York’s – 37,258 statewide, with more than 21,300 in New York City alone – and its 80 coronavirus-related deaths are only a fraction of New York’s 387. But it is the rate of infection that has alarm bells ringing on the West Coast.

According to Dr Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services and its chief medical adviser: “We originally thought that it would be doubling every six to seven days. [Now] we see cases doubling every three to four days.”

There is also concern that the numbers in California, the most populous US state with roughly 40 million, are much lower than New York’s because testing – while not extensive anywhere in the country – has been more comprehensive in New York.

New York surpassed 90,000 tests on Monday, with 10,000 people tested over a single night.

According to California Governor Gavin Newsom, the state has so far tested only 66,800 people. “It’s not good enough,” he said.
Chin-Hong echoed that frustration.

“We don’t even know what’s going on in our community. We don’t have enough diagnostic testing,” he said.
“We’re operating in a black box.”

Last week, in a letter seeking federal assistance, Newsom wrote that if the infection rate continued to climb, more than half of the state’s residents could become infected within two months – a staggering 25.5 million people, with as many as 5 million requiring hospitalisation. California was among the first three states to be designated national disaster areas by the federal government, along with New York and Washington.

Health experts now say that California’s response to the virus – shutting business, encouraging social distancing and putting much of the population on “shelter in place” lockdown – should lower those numbers considerably.

But the increase in infections seen in the last 24 hours shows just how far California must go to get the virus under control.

“The worst days are still ahead,” Garcetti said on Wednesday. “We’ve taken actions earlier and swifter [than other cities], but no one is immune from this virus.”

Meanwhile, Trump said just days ago that he hoped he could lift restrictions on people and businesses as soon as Easter on April 12.

“I’m a little bit outraged,” said Chin-Hong. “I get heart palpitations when I hear those comments. As somebody who knows public health and epidemiology as well as clinical medicine it just gives me shivers in a bad way.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×