The regional stay-at-home order was extended for what’s expected to be at least another three weeks Tuesday after the Southern California region’s intensive care units’ available capacity remained at 0.0%.

The order was extended and will continue to be extended as the region remains under the state’s 15% threshold, Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, announced during a press conference Tuesday.

“The northern part of the state still has availability,” said Ghaly. “It’s a different story for Southern California, however. Hospitals are running out of staff, they’re having to use rooms that are normally used for other things and there’s very long waiting periods.”

The region fell below the 15% threshold on Dec. 5, triggering the three-week order that went into effect the next day. Southern California’s ICU capacity fell to 0.0% on Dec. 17 and has remained there since.

Ghaly said four-week projections are made to predict where each region will be and if the stay-at-home orders are expected to be released or extended.

Projections are made on a daily basis, Ghaly said, and are based on:

Current ICU capacity.

Current seven-day average case rate.

Current transmission rate.

Current rate of ICU admission.

Ghaly said the order is not set for a minimum of three weeks — if a region under the order reports ICU capacity over 15% at any time within the order, the order could be released before the three-week mark, if capacity is projected to remain above 15% for at least the following four weeks. However, Ghaly added projections for Southern California show the order will most likely stay in effect for the next three weeks.