最新的限制要求从晚上10点到12月21日早上5点不出差的人呆在家里，如果迅速恶化的趋势没有改善，限制可能会延长。人们将被允许购买食品杂货，拿起食物甚至遛狗。
当局表示，重点是防止人们参加社交聚会和饮酒——这类活动被认为是导致新冠肺炎感染病例在几个月前下降后飙升的原因。
最近从斯坦福大学退休的传染病专家马克·库伦博士说，潜在的目标是基于对数据的合理解释。
卡伦说:“许多人聚在一起，忘记了控制——没有面具，没有社交距离，通常是在室内——许多这些事情实际上发生在晚上。”然而，他也质疑有限宵禁是否有效。
宵禁适用于该州58个县中的41个县，这些县位于“紫色”层，是四个州中限制最严格的，允许不同阶段的经济重新开放。这些县涵盖了美国人口最多的州近4000万人口的94%。
加州作为一个整体，已经有超过100万人感染，周四记录了创纪录的13000例新病例。
洛杉矶县是该州最大的县，人口约1000万，随着其病例数和住院人数达到惊人的水平，最早下周可能会有更严格的封锁。该县占该州4000万居民的四分之一，但约有三分之一的冠状病毒病例和近40%的死亡病例。
县公共卫生主任芭芭拉·费勒星期五说，该县一天内新增4272例病例，过去三天新增13247例病例。新冠肺炎检测阳性率已跃升至7.3%，近1300人已住院。
费勒说:“我们看到病例的增长速度比我们今年夏天看到的要快。”。“数据现在看起来非常糟糕，我们已经有了...就病例率和住院人数增加而言，这是可怕的三天。”
周五，该县已经减少了餐馆和其他企业的顾客数量。官员们曾表示，如果该县在五天时间内平均每天新增病例超过4000例，或1750人住院，将完全停止用餐；餐馆只能提供食物外卖和送货。如果病例或住院人数分别达到4500人或2000人，该县将实行封锁，并强制执行在家呆三周的命令。
然而，费雷尔说，在这些规定颁布之前，企业将得到几天的警告。
官员们希望避免像3月份新冠肺炎疫情爆发时颁布的那种全面封锁令。此后，公共卫生官员对感染率的波动做出了反应，放松并加强了各种居家订单，以平衡安全和经济。
然而，结果是混乱和一些卫生官员所说的“COVID疲劳”，在这种疲劳中，人们只是厌倦了规则，放松了警惕。
代表数千家健身中心的团体也对新冠肺炎规则提出了反对意见。该州大多数健身房已经关闭或仅限于户外。
加州健身联盟表示，加文·纽瑟姆政府正在使用“无视科学和常识的武断标准”...以确定企业必须关闭的风险水平，这将导致健身领域成千上万的加州人失业。”
卫生官员承认，只有人们自愿遵守宵禁，宵禁才会有助于降低感染率。违反者可能面临罚款或被控轻罪，企业可能被吊销营业执照。但是县主要负责执行。
周五，罗科·特马萨马尼(Rocco Temasamani)在圣地亚哥海洋海滩的一个摊位上出售珠宝。他说，宵禁只会激怒那些认为政府干预过度的人，特别是唐纳德·特朗普总统的支持者。
“你打算怎么执行？”他问道。“你有足够的警察发罚单？”
埃尔多拉多、弗雷斯诺、洛杉矶、奥兰治、普莱瑟、萨克拉门托、圣贝纳迪诺和斯坦尼劳斯县的官员表示，他们不会实施宵禁，一些人强烈反对。
市长林赛·霍瓦特说，以俱乐部和充满活力的男女同性恋、双性恋和变性者群体而闻名的西好莱坞，“将受到宵禁的影响，这是其他城市所没有的”。
霍瓦特说:“这些企业为我们的男女同性恋、双性恋和变性者群体创造了安全的地方，让他们可以出去，享受我们的夜生活，在社区里聚在一起。”。“看到现在正在发生的事情，真令人心碎。”
加州大学伯克利分校公共卫生学院传染病教授李·赖利博士说，宵禁甚至可能适得其反。
他说，伦敦的官员尝试了类似的方法，发现“如果说有什么不同的话，那就是对年轻人来说，这可能增加了他们的社交活动”。“他们不能出去，所以他们聚集在某人的家里或宿舍。”
“我不确定这会有多有效，”莱利说。“但是国家觉得他们必须做点什么。我认为这将主要是一种表面效应，而不是对阻断这种传播的真正影响。”
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美联社作家埃利奥特·斯巴加在圣地亚哥和萨克拉门托的唐·汤普森报道了这个故事。
California enacts nighttime curfew as COVID-19 cases spike
The newest restrictions require people not on essential errands to stay home from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. through Dec. 21, with a possible extension if rapidly worsening trends don’t improve. People will be allowed to shop for groceries, pick up food and even walk their dogs.
Authorities say the focus is on keeping people from social mixing and drinking — the kinds of activities that are blamed for causing COVID-19 infections to soar after dipping only a few months ago.
Dr. Mark Cullen, an infectious disease expert who recently retired from Stanford University, said the underlying goal is based on a reasonable interpretation of data.
“Large numbers of people getting together oblivious of controls — no masks, no social distancing, often indoors — a lot of those things are in fact occurring at night,” Cullen said. However, he also questioned whether a limited curfew will be effective.
The curfew applies to 41 of the state’s 58 counties that are in the “purple” tier, the most restrictive of four state tiers allowing various stages of economic reopening. Those counties encompass 94% of the nearly 40 million people living in the most populous U.S. state.
California as a whole has seen more than 1 million infections, with a record 13,000 new cases recorded Thursday.
Los Angeles County, the state’s largest with about 10 million people, could see even more stringent lockdowns as early as next week as its caseload and hospitalization figures reach stratospheric levels. The county accounts for a quarter of the state’s 40 million residents, but it has about a third of the coronavirus cases and close to 40% of the deaths.
County public health Director Barbara Ferrer said Friday that the county had 4,272 new cases in a single day and 13,247 over the past three days. The rate of positive COVID-19 tests has jumped to 7.3%, and nearly 1,300 people have been hospitalized.
“We’re seeing cases increased at a faster rate than we saw over the summer,” Ferrer said. “The data looks really bad now and we’ve had ... three terrible days in terms of case rates and increases in hospitalizations.”
The county on Friday already reduced the number of customers allowed for restaurants and other businesses. Officials had said that if the county averages more than 4,000 newly reported cases a day for a five-day period or 1,750 hospitalizations, it would end dining entirely; restaurants would only be able to offer food for takeout and delivery. If cases or hospitalizations reach 4,500 or 2,000, respectively, the county will go on lockdown and impose a stay-at-home order for three weeks.
However, Ferrer said businesses would be given several days' warning before the rules are enacted.
Officials hope to avoid full-on lockdown orders of the kind enacted back when the COVID-19 pandemic was gaining steam in March. Public health officials since then have reacted to swings in infection rates by easing and then reinforcing various stay-at-home orders in an effort to balance safety and the economy.
The result, however, has been confusion and what some health officials term “COVID fatigue" in which people simply become tired of the rules and let down their guard.
Pushback on COVID-19 rules also came from groups representing thousands of fitness centers. Most gyms in the state have closed or are limited to outdoors.
The California Fitness Alliance said the administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom is using “arbitrary criteria that defy both science and common sense ... to determine the level of risk at which businesses must close, causing thousands of Californians in the fitness field to lose their jobs.”
Health officials acknowledge that the curfew will help flatten the infection rates only if people heed it voluntarily. Violators could face fines or be charged with a misdemeanor, and businesses could have their business licenses revoked. But counties are mainly responsible for enforcement.
Rocco Temasamani, who was selling jewelry at a stand at San Diego’s Ocean Beach on Friday, said the curfew will just anger people who consider it government overreach, particularly supporters of President Donald Trump.
“How are you going to enforce it?” he asked. “You have enough police to give out tickets?”
Officials in El Dorado, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, Placer, Sacramento, San Bernardino and Stanislaus counties were among those saying they would not enforce the curfew, with some strongly opposed.
West Hollywood, famously known for its clubs and vibrant LGBT community, “will be impacted like no other city" by the curfew, Mayor Lindsey Horvath said.
“These businesses have created places, safe places for our LGBT community to go out in particular, to enjoy our nightlife, to be together in community," Horvath said. “It’s terribly heartbreaking to see what’s happening right now.”
The curfew even could be counterproductive, said Dr. Lee Riley, an infectious disease professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health.
Officials in London who tried a similar approach found that “if anything, for the young people it may have increased their social gathering activities,” he said. “They can’t go out, so they congregate in somebody’s home or dormitories.”
“I’m not sure how effective this is going to be,” Riley said. “But the state feels that they have to do something. I think it’s going to be mostly a cosmetic effect and not so much a real impact on interrupting this transmission.”
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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Don Thompson in Sacramento contributed to this story.
