The governor of California said on Monday that rates of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions were all trending down in the state, according to the latest analysis.

Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in a briefing that despite the stateā€™s Central Valley agricultural region was still being hit hard by the coronavirus and that the data was not yet enough to consider lifting pandemic restrictions.

ā€œThis virus is not going away,ā€ Newsom said. ā€œIts not going to take Labor Day weekend off Halloween off or the holidays off. Until we have a vaccine we are going to be living with this virus.ā€

California, the nationā€™s most populous state with some 40 million residents, has recorded a total of 514,901 confirmed COVID-19 infections and 9,388 deaths, according to the governorā€™s office.

The state has administered more than 8 million tests for COVID-19 and has seen the rate of positive results decline to seven percent over the last 14 days, compared to 7.5 percent in the previous two weeks.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Sandra Maler)