More than 7 million are quarantined in the San Francisco region

The prefectures of six counties in California decided on Tuesday, 17, to quarantine about 7 million people in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19 , the disease caused by the new coronavirus , in the San Francisco Bay area .

Residents are expected to stay home for three weeks from noon on Tuesday. The government has banned the movement of people on the streets and agglomerations of more than 10 people under penalty of fines or imprisonment. Only establishments that offer essential services, such as banks, pharmacies, laundries, veterinarians, gas stations and tool stores, may operate.

Restaurants will be able to open, but only to operate with deliveries. Nurseries and nursing homes for the elderly may operate if certain hygiene conditions are respected.

The measures taken by city halls to stop the spread of the coronavirus are the hardest adopted in the United States, since the San Francisco Bay area concentrates 297 of the 575 confirmed cases across California. The state is the third most infected in the country, which already registers 4,400 people infected.

The counties that are under quarantine are: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz.

The region is located around the technological hub of Silicon Valley, where companies such as Facebook, Google and Apple have their headquarters. The rush to mitigate the effects on the economy prompted the California government on Monday to approve a $ 1 billion package to invest in health, sanitation and social programs for homeless people in the state.

The federal government announced on Tuesday that it will ask Congress for $ 850 billion to inject into the economy and ease stock exchanges, which have accumulated record losses in recent weeks, in addition to assisting airlines. Despite the measure, the American government is already working on the possibility of an economic recession .