Thread by @latimes

There is increasing evidence that California’s latest stay-at-home order, including a ban on outdoor dining, worked to turn around a deadly surge of the coronavirus. latimes.com/california/sto…

Gov. Newsom announced last week that he was lifting the stay-at-home order that had been in place in most of the state since early December in light of the state’s declining COVID-19 case and hospitalization numbers. latimes.com/california/sto…

After weeks of overwhelmed hospitals and record death tolls, the improvements seemed sudden and surprising.

But experts say they are the consequence of changes that Californians started to make two months ago. latimes.com/california/sto…

In L.A. County, the stay-at-home orders and a ban on outdoor dining were followed by a drop in the transmission rate from 1.2 before the orders to 0.85 by early January.

Anything above 1.0 means an outbreak will grow exponentially.

California officials estimated that the state’s order kept as many as 25,000 people from landing in the hospital with a severe case of COVID-19.

Scientists say that they can’t tease out which part of the order was most effective in turning the tide, but several leading public health experts agreed that the outdoor dining ban probably played a key role.

Read the full story: latimes.com/california/sto…