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.
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. , 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.
Timeline
First detection
Although later events suggested that COVID-19 had been present within California in December 2019, the virus was not detected for the first time until late January 2020: On January 26, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case in California. The person, who had returned from travel to Wuhan, China, was released from the hospital in Orange County on February 1 in good condition to in-home isolation. On January 31, the CDC confirmed the state's second case, a man in Santa Clara County, who had recently traveled to Wuhan. The man recovered at home and was released from in-home isolation on February 20.
On January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 of its employees, their families, and other U.S. citizens from Hubei Province aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County. There were concerns at the time that allowing Americans to return from overseas might spread COVID-19 within California and the rest of the US.
On February 2, the CDC confirmed the state's third case in a woman in Santa Clara County, California, who had recently traveled to Wuhan. On the same day, the CDC reported the country's tenth and eleventh cases in San Benito County, including the second known instance of human-to-human transmission.
On February 5, the U.S. evacuated 345 citizens from Hubei Province and took them to two air bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, to be quarantined for 14 days.
First death
On February 6, 2020, a woman from San Jose, California became the first COVID-19 death in the U.S., though this was not discovered until April 2020. The case indicated community transmission had been happening undetected in the state and the U.S., most likely since December 2019. On February 15, the government evacuated 338 U.S. nationals stranded aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess, which had been held in quarantine in Yokohama, Japan. Fourteen of those repatriated people were infected with the virus. Five more nationals with COVID-19 were evacuated from the ship the following week and were quarantined at Travis Air Force Base; several more cases among the evacuees were later confirmed.