As a third of hospitals report critical staffing shortages, California’s health department is considering issuing an order postponing many elective surgeries. Many procedures, including a lung transplant, already have been canceled.

Gov. Gavin Newsom Monday announced that the state could be headed toward another shelter-in-place order. The news comes as 99 percent of California’s population is already subject to the state’s most restrictive purple tier in the COVID-19 Blueprint for a Safer Economy. That means that more than 39 million California