California imposes night curfew as L.A. careens toward new lockdown measures

SACRAMENTO — California announced Thursday it will impose a mandatory overnight stay-at-home order for much of the state as COVID-19 surged to unprecedented levels and hard-hit Los Angeles County careened toward even more severe lockdown measures.

While the coronavirus is surging across the state, the situation in Los Angeles County was quickly reaching crisis levels, with nearly 5,000 new coronavirus cases Thursday, the most it has seen in any one day since the pandemic began.

Moreover, California set another record for most coronavirus cases in a single day Thursday. An independent county-by-county tally conducted by The Times found that 13,422 new coronavirus cases were reported Thursday, the second time in a week the single-day record has been broken.

The single-day record was last broken on Monday, when 13,412 coronavirus cases were reported.