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Will Gavin Newsom be fired? Internet calls California Gov 'murderer' for plans to lift stay-at-home restrictions

Parallelly, California's campaign to fire him has gathered steam due to growing concern and anger over his approach to the raging pandemic

California Governor Gavin Newsom faced intense and harsh criticism on Twitter. Some labeled him as a "murderer" after multiple reports stated that he was expected to announce on Monday, January 25, that the stringent stay-at-home orders would be lifted in all regions of the state. This was according to a letter from the California Restaurant Association to its members, an NBC Los Angeles report stated.

The letter was dated Sunday, January 24, and officials in Newsom's administration confirmed this with the association. The site reckoned that more availability of the ICU beds across the Bay Area and the other parts of the state might be one of the reasons for this decision.

At present, the Bay Area's capacity is at 23.4%, a stark contrast to the less than 1% rate it had a few weeks ago. The news was not taken too kindly by Internet users who lambasted Newsom on social media and called for him to be ejected from his role. "gavin newsom is a fucking murderer send tweet," read one of the tweets.

This was seconded by a user who wrote: "As someone who will be directly affected by lighter restrictions, this worries me. Already forced to deal w/ people that don't like to follow safety guidelines as they are now, putting my health at risk, so this means more people out to put me at risk daily.."

"I hear that new strain can increase death rates by 30%. I imposed my own stay at home order for myself. We can't rely on our govt to keep us safe. Be careful everyone," said one user in response to the latest news.

"what the fuck is this @GavinNewsom LA is already a festering shithole of covid... you should be focusing on getting us the vaccine, but instead you embolden these dumb fucks to act like we’re not even in a pandemic," read one of the comments.

The flak showed no signs of ceasing. "ICU availability in Southern California is at 0%! They just detected a novel strain of COVID currently only in CA! They're literally lifting air quality regulations in LA so they can burn more corpses! And Newsom's response is to ease restrictions?! I feel like I'm going insane." one tweet read.

Although the next step remains unclear, for now, there seems to be some development although the move has faced severe backlash. Parallelly, California's campaign to fire Newsom has gathered substantial steam.

According to Fox News, a recall campaign to sack him is inching closer to the required threshold to make the statewide ballot. The report added that recall organizers had said they collected "1.2 million of the needed 1.5 million signatures needed by March 17 to qualify for a ballot."

According to state law, petition sponsors must collect the signatures of 12% of the voter turnout in California’s previous statewide election, which is estimated to be about 1,495,709 names. This is the sixth recall attempt Newsom has faced over the last two years. The latest effort gained more traction due to the growing frustration over how Newsom is handling the coronavirus situation.

"It's absolutely gaining traction. We're getting petitions from not only Republicans but from Democrats and Independents," said John Cox, Newsom's Republican challenger in 2018. He also recently launched an exploratory committee to challenge the governor again in 2022. "This has just gone on too long, the mismanagement that has accompanied this pandemic," he told the site.