California governor Gavin Newsom. (AP photo)
WASHINGTON: California, whose $3.1 trillion economy is bigger than India’s and ranks fifth in the world when considered as a country, has ordered a lockdown of its 40 million residents after the state governor Gavin Newsom wrote to President Trump that 56% of its residents, perhaps up to 25 million people, would be infected with coronavirus in 8 weeks without mitigation efforts.
In the most dramatic measure taken to combat the corona crisis in the United States, where confirmed cases doubled in just two days in part because of increased testing, Newsom ordered a shutdown of all non-essential business in the state while requesting $ 1 billion federal aid, including a hospital ship to be deployed off Los Angeles.
The dire projection in what is called the Golden State, which aides to the governor clarified was a worst-case scenario if no action is taken right now, came even as the federal government deferred its annual tax filing deadline from April 15 to July 15. Coming on top of a $1 trillion economic bailout tha