California on Monday announced the state's first tentative steps to reopen from a lockdown designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus, giving a green light for retail stores to open this week, though with restrictions.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said the nation's most populous U.S. state, among the two dozen that still has full restrictions in place, would allow some counties to go further if they met certain testing and protection guidelines.
"This is an optimistic day, as we see a little bit of a ray of sunshine," Newsom, a first-term Democrat, said at his daily
Coronavirus briefing.