Apple Temporarily Closes All California Stores as Virus Cases Rise [Updated]

Apple is temporarily closing its retail locations in the Los Angeles area due to a rising number of COVID-19 cases in Southern California, reports Bloomberg. Update - Dec. 19: Apple has extended the closures to all stores in California indefinitely.

apple the grove store
This is the first time in several months that stores in Los Angeles have been closed. Apple has several major retail locations in the area, including stores at The Grove and Beverly Center shopping centers. Two stores in Los Angeles are closed today, and 11 additional stores are closing on Saturday. There is no word on when the stores will re-open.

All of Southern California is under a stay at home order that went into effect earlier in December, but the order does not require non-essential retail stores to shut down. Instead, stores and malls are able to operate at a reduced capacity, so Apple is not required to shut down by the state, but is likely doing so to protect its employees.

Coronavirus cases are also surging in the San Francisco Bay Area where Apple's headquarters are located, but the company has not yet closed stores there. Most stores are, however, operating in a limited "Express" mode that allows for order pickups and genius bar appointments, but does not let people browse.

Apple began closing retail locations earlier this year and many of its stores were shut down for months in the spring. Apple began reopening stores in June, but said that stores could close again depending on local guidelines and conditions.

In all stores, Apple is requiring face masks, limiting store occupancy, conducting temperature checks, implementing social distancing measures, and deep cleaning regularly.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

iOS 19 Mock WWDC25 Feature

iOS 19 Expected to Run on These iPhones

Monday March 31, 2025 5:28 pm PDT by
iOS 19 will not be available on the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or the iPhone XS Max, according a private account on social media site X that has accurately provided information on device compatibility in the past. The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max all have an A12 Bionic chip, so it looks like iOS 19 will discontinue support for that chip. All other iPhones that run iOS 18 are expected...
watchOS 11 Thumb 2 1

Apple Releases watchOS 11.4 With Sleep Alarm Update

Tuesday April 1, 2025 10:34 am PDT by
Apple today released watchOS 11.4, the fourth major update to the operating system that runs on the Apple Watch. watchOS 11.4 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 6 and later, all Apple Watch Ultra models, and the Apple Watch SE 2. watchOS 11.4 can be downloaded on a connected iPhone by opening up the Apple Watch app and going to General > Software Update. To install the new software,...
AirPods Pro Firmware Feature

Apple Releases New Firmware for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4

Monday March 31, 2025 11:27 am PDT by
Apple today released new firmware updates for all AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 models. The new firmware is version 7E93, up from the 7B21 firmware that was installed on the AirPods Pro 2 and the 7B20 firmware available on the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC. It is not immediately clear what new features or changes are included in the new firmware, but we'll update this article should we find ...
maxresdefault

Apple Releases iOS 18.4 With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music, New Emoji and More

Monday March 31, 2025 10:03 am PDT by
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Apple Card iPhone 16 Pro Feature

Visa and American Express Vying to Win Apple Card Deal in 'Fierce' Fight

Tuesday April 1, 2025 1:50 pm PDT by
Visa wants to pay Apple approximately $100 million to be the new payment network for the Apple Card, reports The Wall Street Journal. As of right now, the Apple Card is on the Mastercard payment network, but that is set to change because Apple is ending its partnership with Goldman Sachs. Both American Express and Visa are vying to replace Mastercard as Apple's card services provider, while...
iOS 18

Apple Seeds First Beta of iOS 18.5 to Developers

Wednesday April 2, 2025 10:11 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming just two days after Apple released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4. iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update. We don't yet know what Apple is introducing in the iOS 18.5...

Top Rated Comments

eatrains Avatar
56 months ago

Funny thing about the truth ... truth doesn't change. Every facet of the Wuhan Flu has gone through a series of illogical changes. If lockdowns work, if masks work; then why is there a spike? Why is the annual rate of influenza, which we have records of dating more than 50 years, nearly zero? Why has the CDC said that ~6% of the reported Covid Deaths are people who died FROM COVID, rather than had COVID as a contributing factor? If you have cancer, heart disease, pulmonary failure, emphysema, uncontrolled diabetes - COVID isn't going to help.

But, as the CDC states that the average life expectancy in the US is 78.6 years, and has remained unchanged for the past several years; and the average death from COVID is over 80 years of age (even with Comorbidites, as listed previously) - why are we locking down?

Logically, Texas, South Dakota and Florida should be leading the USA for Covid deaths and infections - they aren't. Sweden never did lock down, they should all be dead - they aren't.

Barnum is quoted as "You can fool some of the people some of the time", obviously never was aquatinted with pushing a non-existent pandemic. "15 weeks to Flatten the Curve; now in month 9"
Lockdowns and masks are preventatives, not guarantees. Without them, things would be even worse than they are.

Coincidently, masks and lockdowns certainly helped with that low influenza rate.

Just because someone is old or sick doesn’t mean they deserve to die.

Sweden admitted they made a huge mistake and are backtracking because things have gone so poorly for them.

And the fact that you think this pandemic doesn’t exist is precisely why it’s gone on for so long.
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
incoherent_1 Avatar
56 months ago

Eh, NY is just as big of a mess IMO... ridiculous and arbitrary rules, many businesses permanently closed, rising crime, mass exodus, plunging property values, etc. and a shutdown looming after the New Year. A lot of people are moving out for a reason, and with higher taxes coming, it’s only going to get worse... just like California. I love NY but I don’t have high hopes for its future, even after Covid ends.
Speaking as an American who lives overseas but loves his country: the whole US is a mess. Some states slightly bigger than others, but there is a rightful shock and pity I get from people these days when they hear I’m an American. Americans can’t even agree a pandemic exists, let alone that basic precautions are a good thing (we can look no further than this forum even to see people arguing conspiratorial garbage).
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gbc204 Avatar
56 months ago

Yeah, I use to be brainwashed like so many others and I was living in fear over COVID statistic numbers. I then had my brain cleansed by a few of my friends who actually work in a couple of our local hospitals here in the Orlando area. All of my hospital worker friends (of which three work in the ER department at Orlando Regional Medical Center) have told me the same thing. The fear from the media when it comes to COVID deaths are highly exaggerated beyond belief. They told me they have had some COVID cases in their hospitals but the actual death cases are nowhere near as high as what the media wants us to believe.

It took me a while to believe them so I did some research on my own. There are several videos on YouTube of where people have been shooting actual outside footage of the ER departments in NYC and the videos show them to be almost a ghost town. In other words, once again, things have been blown way out of proportion. I finally came out of my fear shell and I decided to start living again. I use common sense and I wear my face mask in public and of course I wash my hands quite often as well.

Fear is a very powerful tool that the soon to be dictators of this country will be gaining more and more power as time moves on. But I will tend to believe my friends that actually work in the front lines and not garbage media like CNN and many others that want to drive people to the point to where they're afraid of their own shadows. So, that being that. I say go ahead and live in fear if you must. I'm going to live my life as I normally would with a few but minor inconveniences like wearing a face mask in public and so on. But to keep my butt locked up in my own house will never happen. I'll take my own life before I allow any wanna-be dictator politician to direct how my life is lived.
Ah yes... "I did my own research" is the phrase that has probably caused the most damage to this country in the last 25 years, and a good argument why the internet shouldn't exists.
Sure, the media is the problem. The evil media! Of course!
I love how people are acting like we're living under the thumb of a tyrannical government when in reality we've never really had a real "lockdown." If we'd have a true, nationwide lockdown, we'd have been out of the worst of it MONTHS ago. Instead we half-ass it so people can eat in restaurants and pretend that everything is normal so we can watch football and try to act like everything might be OK without any real sacrifice. "Minor inconvenience? Sure!" Any other measure that requires staying inside for two weeks! "I'd rather kill myself!"
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Analog Kid Avatar
56 months ago

PCR-positive results, not virus cases. There's a diff.
I don't think those ICU beds are full of false positives, if that's what you're suggesting...


Funny thing about the truth ... truth doesn't change. Every facet of the Wuhan Flu has gone through a series of illogical changes. If lockdowns work, if masks work; then why is there a spike? Why is the annual rate of influenza, which we have records of dating more than 50 years, nearly zero? Why has the CDC said that ~6% of the reported Covid Deaths are people who died FROM COVID, rather than had COVID as a contributing factor? If you have cancer, heart disease, pulmonary failure, emphysema, uncontrolled diabetes - COVID isn't going to help.

But, as the CDC states that the average life expectancy in the US is 78.6 years, and has remained unchanged for the past several years; and the average death from COVID is over 80 years of age (even with Comorbidites, as listed previously) - why are we locking down?

Logically, Texas, South Dakota and Florida should be leading the USA for Covid deaths and infections - they aren't. Sweden never did lock down, they should all be dead - they aren't.

Barnum is quoted as "You can fool some of the people some of the time", obviously never was aquatinted with pushing a non-existent pandemic. "15 weeks to Flatten the Curve; now in month 9"
Wow.

Ok. If lockdowns work, and then you lift the lockdown, the spike is anticipated. In other words, there is a spike because lockdowns work. The lockdown is what you're comparing against.

The average life expectancy you are describing is years from birth. An average is taking all the numbers, adding them together, and dividing by the number of people. Infant mortality contributes a lot of zeros into that average calculation. Once you survive a few years your life expectancy increases.

For men, once you live to see 50, you're expected to live to see 80. Once you live to see 80, you're expected to live to see 88. Once you see 88, you're expected to see 93. At 93, you're expected to see 96. Women do better.
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

The probability of dying in any given year doesn't cross 50% until you turn 108 in the US.

In other words, for everyone younger than 108 that asked "am I going to die in 2020?", the answer was "probably not".

So if your argument is "they're going to die anyway", then why have a healthcare system at all? Next time someone gets hit by a car, leave them there in the road unless they can walk home. Remember, the life expectancy doesn't only include disease, it includes death by accident so if we're taking life expectancy as destiny, we should stay hands off, right?

Survival is programmed into us. The argument that "they lived longer than they should have" is sociopathic.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gbc204 Avatar
56 months ago

Funny thing about the truth ... truth doesn't change. Every facet of the Wuhan Flu has gone through a series of illogical changes. If lockdowns work, if masks work; then why is there a spike? Why is the annual rate of influenza, which we have records of dating more than 50 years, nearly zero? Why has the CDC said that ~6% of the reported Covid Deaths are people who died FROM COVID, rather than had COVID as a contributing factor? If you have cancer, heart disease, pulmonary failure, emphysema, uncontrolled diabetes - COVID isn't going to help.

But, as the CDC states that the average life expectancy in the US is 78.6 years, and has remained unchanged for the past several years; and the average death from COVID is over 80 years of age (even with Comorbidites, as listed previously) - why are we locking down?

Logically, Texas, South Dakota and Florida should be leading the USA for Covid deaths and infections - they aren't. Sweden never did lock down, they should all be dead - they aren't.

Barnum is quoted as "You can fool some of the people some of the time", obviously never was aquatinted with pushing a non-existent pandemic. "15 weeks to Flatten the Curve; now in month 9"
Masks work and lockdowns work. People not following lockdown rules and refusing to wear masks... doesn't work. This isn't hard. I could go on an tell you why every sentence you said is wrong, but you wouldn't believe it anyway so... Yeah. People like you are the reason we aren't out of this yet.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Karma*Police Avatar
56 months ago

California is a mess. I’m glad New York has been able to keep their stores open and avoid another shutdown to this point.
Eh, NY is just as big of a mess IMO... ridiculous and arbitrary rules, many businesses permanently closed, rising crime, mass exodus, plunging property values, etc. and a shutdown looming after the New Year. A lot of people are moving out for a reason, and with higher taxes coming, it’s only going to get worse... just like California. I love NY but I don’t have high hopes for its future, even after Covid ends.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)