COVID-19 pandemic in California
The COVID-19 pandemic in California began earlier than in some other parts of the United States. Ten of the first 20 confirmed COVID-19 infections in the United States were detected in California, and the first infection was confirmed on January 26, 2020. All of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China, as testing was restricted to this group, but there were some other people infected by that point. A state of emergency was declared in the state on March 4, 2020. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020; it was ended on January 25, 2021. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.
| COVID-19 pandemic in California | |
|---|---|
A UC Davis engineer using COVID-19 testing equipment | |
| Disease | COVID-19 |
| Virus strain | SARS-CoV-2 |
| Location | California, U.S |
| First outbreak | Wuhan, Hubei, China |
| Index case | Orange County |
| Arrival date | January 25, 2020 |
| Confirmed cases | 9,894,792 (JHU) 9,199,942 (CDPH) |
| Suspected cases‡ | At least 221,000 in April 2020 |
| Hospitalized cases | 11,045 (confirmed) 820 (suspected) |
| Critical cases | 2,996 (confirmed) 95 (suspected) |
Deaths | 91,922 (JHU) 91,240 (CDPH) 63,191 (Google News) |
| Government website | |
| cdph.ca.gov/covid19 | |
| ‡Suspected cases have not been confirmed by laboratory tests as being due to this strain, although some other strains may have been ruled out. | |
As of June 16, 2022, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has reported 9,199,942 confirmed cumulative cases and 91,240 deaths in the state. This was the highest number of confirmed cases in the United States, but because the state has the highest population of any US state, it also had one of the lowest rankings (41st highest out of 50 states) for confirmed cases per capita. It has the highest count of deaths related to the virus, but a relatively low (35th highest) count of deaths per capita. As of June 15, 2021, California had administered 40,669,793 COVID-19 vaccine doses, the largest number of doses nationwide, and was one of the highest ranked (11th out of 50 states) in terms of per-capita dose administration.
A bipartisan effort of politicians and owners of restaurants, bars, gyms, spas, and other small businesses harmed by lockdown restrictions attempted to recall Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021; he won the election with 66% support.
California is the origin of the Epsilon variant of SARS-CoV-2, which, in March 2021, accounted for 35% of all confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state at that time.