“You didn’t see those images on [Los Angeles] beaches and San Diego beaches and northern California beaches … because we had strong guidelines,” he said. “The images down in Orange county and Ventura county, on our beaches, those images are an example of what not to do.”

Los Angeles county has shut down all of its 20 beaches along 25 miles of coastline, but it has been a point of pride for nearby Orange and Ventura counties to have kept their beaches open. With no other local beaches open, people flocked to those seafront towns in the thousands.

The Newport Beach city council will hold a special meeting Tuesday afternoon to debate legislation to shut beaches to outsiders and even close the roadways used for beach access.

Meanwhile, San Diego county reopened its beaches as of Monday morning to activities like surfing, swimming and single-person paddling.

“The reality is we are just a few weeks away, not months away from making measurable and meaningful changes to our stay-at-home order,” said Newsom. “The only thing that will set us back is our behaviour … the only thing that can stop that is more images like we saw this weekend.”

Local officials for the two counties have been adamant that their beaches are open for locals only and had hoped that parking restrictions along the coast would keep away non-locals, but the hordes were not deterred on Saturday.

And while the Newport Beach Police Department said they would be strictly enforcing coronavirus restrictions, not a single citation was issued over the weekend.

“I observed the beach rush and did not see six feet between people. While I want people to feel free and safe, this is unsafe,” said Kate Zaiger, a public health adviser to California Governor Gavin Newsom.

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Anwar Glenn, a surfer from Pasadena who was not riding the waves in Orange county this past weekend, said he is losing patience with the beach closures.

“In my opinion the people surfing have no issue social distancing. It’s all the beach goers and tanners that are in a mass crowd. They let people ride bikes in groups and none of them are being fined or arrested. It’s pretty ridiculous,” Glenn said.

“Hopefully they’ll open the beaches in [Los Angeles] to surfing because that would yield less crowded breaks since there would be more options,” he added. “People are going to surf, that’s the reality.”

But Californians are widely in favour of the state’s stay-at-home measures. According to those polled for a recent survey by California Health Care Foundation and Ipsos, 75 per cent wanted the order to continue as long as needed, with only 11 per cent wanting to lift restrictions.

The situation in California represents a microcosm for tensions playing out across the country. States have been left to themselves to determine what restrictions to put in place, and how quickly to begin a return to normality. The result is a patchwork of responses from state to state and even city to city.

In Georgia, against health experts’ advice, Governor Brian Kemp has moved ahead reopening businesses including those – like tattoo parlours and hair salons – inciting the criticism of many of his state’s mayors.

“Be on the lookout for a huge spike in infections in Georgia and Florida in the next 10-14 days. This is an infection that can reinfect at a rate we do not know, so extra caution makes sense, not less caution,” said Zaiger. “I keep directing people to the waves of the Spanish flu. It came in waves, and so will this. We have the education from the 1918 flu but citizens aren’t wanting to listen.”

World Health Organisation (WHO) officials reiterated warnings on Monday that countries seeking to end restrictions on movements should do so on a step-by-step and data-driven basis.

“Each country has to balance lives against livelihoods,” Mike Ryan, the agency’s head of health emergencies, said at a press briefing.

Ryan conceded that the WHO believed the US federal government’s phased approach to easing restrictions seemed “to be very much based on science”.

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“If that framework is being advised by top scientists at a federal level, then obviously it is a discussion with the state system as [to] how best to introduce that,” he said.

In situations where countries relaxed restrictions too quickly, “you may be back in a situation where lockdowns have to be reimposed”, Ryan said.

It remained to be seen how quickly the virus could bounce back if the “pressure” created by lockdowns was released too abruptly, or exactly which measures would result in a successful exit strategy, said Ryan. But, he added, “large scale mass gatherings are not a good thing”.

As Governor Newsom said: “This virus doesn’t take the weekends off. This virus doesn’t go home because it’s a beautiful sunny day.”

Additional reporting by Owen Churchill