(CN) – Government officials across the country ordered the closure of restaurants, bars and other public places Monday in a last-ditch effort to slow the coronavirus outbreak affecting thousands of people in 49 states.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued recommendations on Sunday urging the cancellation of all events of 50 or more people for the next two months to control the spread of the virus. State and city leaders on both coasts followed suit and ordered bars and restaurants closed.
“You see a whole hodgepodge of efforts across the country,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters Monday morning in a joint press briefing with the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut. “It’s chaos. It feeds the feeling that the country is out of control.”
In a rare moment of praise across the aisle, Cuomo offered kudos to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for their responsiveness on New York’s requests for quicker testing, and said now similar drastic action needs to happen for the state health care system as New York moves to what he called a virus “mitigation phase.”
Cuomo said that in the absence of federal involvement, he would work with private developers, building unions, and the national guard “to find existing facilities that could most easily be adapted to medical facilities,” like dormitories and former nursing homes. New York City alone could need 5,000 or more additional hospital beds, Cuomo said, which he called a conservative estimate.
But he said he’d need help from the feds, which he called for in an editorial over the weekend for The New York Times.
“This is exactly what they do: deploy the Army Corps of Engineers to come work with states to build temporary medical facilities,” he said. “Get us backup beds so when the hospital is overwhelmed, we can have some of the people who are in the hospital beds go to a backup medical facility.”
Though 86% of New York’s schools are already closed, Cuomo and his secretary Melissa DeRosa confirmed they will shutter the remaining 14% by Wednesday.
Cuomo and the other governors announced closures of not just restaurants and bars, but also casinos, gyms and movie theaters.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy went a step further and announced a statewide 8 p.m. curfew. Washington, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky and Massachusetts issued similar rules.
"I tried earlier this week to appeal to everyone's good judgment to stay home, to avoid bars, not to congregate in crowds,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said at a press conference Sunday. “It's unfortunate that many people didn't take that seriously. The time for persuasion and public appeals is over.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, recommended those closures but stopped short of an order. Some cities took action on their own. On Sunday night, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti ordered bars to close and restaurants to only offer take-out service.
LA County Superior Court said late Monday it would close for just three days, from Tuesday to Friday, though all civil and criminal trials had already been suspended for 30 days.