How Success Against the Coronavirus Turned to Crisis in California

For most of the spring, California was a coronavirus success story. Now, just weeks after it began to reopen, new cases of Covid-19 are exploding across America’s most populous state, and public officials are quickly retrenching.

On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a slew of new restrictions, including the mandatory closure of many bars and indoor restaurants, an effective admission that, after proceeding slower than other states in the early months of the outbreak, California reopened too quickly.

Nearly 6,000 people tested positive for the new coronavirus in California Tuesday,...