Why is California basically shutting down?

Here's the problem. If your hospitals get to around 20% capacity within 2 weeks time likely you will be at 100% capacity for hospital beds. What happens then is that instead of 2.5% people dying from coronavirus it skyrockets to around 5% to 10% of the total cases in that state. 

Not only that NO ONE that has babies or heart attacks or strokes or is in an accident can even get into ANY of the hospitals in that area. So, for California to shut down will save likely thousands of lives just in this state over the next month or two while other places that don't shut down could have thousands of more people dying as a direct result. 

So, you are not only saving the lives of coronavirus patients you are also saving the lives of All Emergency patients in ALL categories as well in the whole state of California.