The governor of California hit out at residents who continued to visit some of the state's beaches over the weekend, defying his recommendations to stay at home to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Gov Gavin Newsom, speaking in his daily press conference regarding the virus, warned that flouting the recommendations could prolong the outbreak in the state.

“This virus doesn’t take the weekends off, this virus doesn’t go home because it’s a beautiful sunny day around our coasts,” Gov Newsom said in the briefing.

The criticism comes as images surfaced of beaches in Orange and Ventura counties showing thousands of people flocking to beaches and parks over the weekend to enjoy the hot weather.

“Those images are an example of what not to see, people, what not to do if we're going to make the meaningful progress that we've made in the last few weeks extend into the next number of weeks,” Gov Newsom said.

Social distancing guidelines vary across the state and some counties eased restrictions on public access to open spaces.

While attending beaches that had been opened for the weekend does not break the state’s stay-at-home order, the governor has urged that people should only be visiting the spaces for exercise and be stringently maintaining social distance measures.

“The only thing that will set us back is people stopping to practice physical distancing and appropriate social distancing. That’s the only thing that’s going to slow down our ability to reopen this economy," he said.

Orange County officials defended the actions of residents insisting that they were observing necessary social distancing measures.

“From what I could tell, all of the individuals that are along the sand, they were placing their umbrellas and they were congregating within their own family unit,” Orange County Executive Officer Frank Kim said.

“What I saw was an effort from all of the participants who were using the amenities to adhere to the principle of social distancing.”

Gov Newsom vowed to increase statewide enforcement of the stay-at-home order if necessary, despite mounting pressure to begin to re-open the state amidst the pandemic.

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The governor said that modifications to the stay-at-home order could be made within a matter of weeks if counties and their residents comply with the regulations.

“The hope and expectation,” he said, “is that we’ll be in a position in a number of weeks to make meaningful modifications, but again the data will guide that, the indicators will guide that.”

People enjoy the beach amid the novel coronavirus pandemic in Huntington Beach, California on 25 April 2020 (AFP via Getty Images)

A number of states across the US have begun to relax their statewide orders and allow certain non-essential businesses to re-open

Florida has partially reopened a number of its beaches in Jacksonville and Bay County, maintaining regulations on social distancing and strict opening hours.

California has recorded at least 42,000 cases of the novel coronavirus within the state, and more than 1,600 deaths.