Stay closer to home, California health officials urge, in updated COVID travel advisory
As coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations reached all-time highs, the California Department of Public Health on this week updated its guidelines outlining the COVID-19 risk associated with traveling, expanding on and superseding an advisory sent on Nov. 13 with two main updates.
Their plea to residents was to stay home as they urged travelers to think twice before coming or leaving the Golden State. While phrased strongly, the advisory issued Wednesday is voluntary. It is not a mandate.
The new guidelines shorten the self-quarantine period from 14 to 10 days for non-essential out-of-state travelers, consistent with more recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations. Non-essential travelers are still “strongly discouraging” from entering California.
Second, the update says Californians should limit non-essential travel to a maximum of 120 miles from home within the state in addition to avoiding other states or countries.
The advisory was tightened at least in part due to the new variant of the virus recently confirmed in California.
“Avoiding travel reduces the risk of virus transmission, including by reducing the risk that new sources of infection and, potentially, new virus strains will be introduced to California,” the CDPH advisory said.
California is surpassing already staggering highs for the coronavirus even though its too early for either Christmas or New Year’s Eve celebrations to be a significant factor.
In the past two weeks, 4,410 Californians have died of the disease for an average of 315 per day, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The state started reported 583 new deaths Thursday, two shy of the record-high 585 reported on New Year’s Day. But that 585 figure included a large holiday-linked backlog from Los Angeles County. Wednesday’s figure was anchored by 257 new Los Angeles deaths, which county health officials did not link to a backlog.
