County moves from red to orange
Gail Newel cheers metrics with caution about the future
SANTA CRUZ >> Santa Cruz County’s COVID-19 metrics moved the jurisdiction into the orange tier Tuesday, loosening restrictions beyond what was allowed in the red tier.
Starting at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, county residents, as well as state visitors coming to take advantage of the reopening of the Santa
Cruz Beach Boardwalk, can enjoy retail at full capacity with modifications, restaurants with indoor dining at 50% capacity and gyms at 25% capacity. The state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy framework illustrates that amusement and theme parks can be open at 25% capac
ity or 500 people, whichever is less. Indoor and outdoor entertainment locations such as aquariums, museums and zoos can open at 50% capacity while bowling centers can open at 25% capacity.
Breweries, bars and distilleries can resume outdoor operations without meals while wineries can host guests indoors with 25% capacity, or 100 people if that is lesser. Movie theaters can open at 50% capacity or 200 people, whichever is a smaller number.
Ceremonial institutions see a shift, too, with churches opening with 50% capacity indoors and weddings being permitted indoors with modifications. During a ceremony in the orange tier, if there is singing or chanting, performers must maintain social distancing requirements and wear a face mask at all times. It is encouraged that the performers get tested for COVID-19 and inform the contractor of negative results 72 hours before the event.
Wedding receptions can be held indoors and outdoors, however, just three households are permitted including that of the host. Though technically permitted, indoor receptions are highly discouraged.
Certain facilities remain closed, including concert venues, convention centers, festivals, live theater, nightclubs, saunas and steam rooms and common areas in shopping malls and swap meets. The California Department of Public Health credits the risk of each activity to the decisions around which institutions are open and which ones are closed.
The California Department of Public Health said an industry’s opening depends on various factors, including whether it can accommodate mask-wearing at all times, allow physical distance between individuals from different households and more.
“Activities and businesses that have a lower risk of spreading COVID-19 are allowed to open sooner,” CDPH officials state on the Blueprint framework page.
‘Time will tell'
While the move to a less restrictive tier is encouraging, the county provided a warning in its prepared statement about arrival into the orange tier.
“While transmission rates locally look positive and the county remains a leader in per capita vaccinations within the state, coronavirus cases are increasing globally and the B.1.1.7 variant has recently been found within Santa Cruz County,” county officials said. “Vaccinated and unvaccinated residents are advised to continue wearing masks and practicing social distancing while in public.”
County Health Officer Dr. Gail Newel said Tuesday afternoon that she had heard rumblings of concerning national news Monday and read more about them as she was ready to celebrate greatly improved metrics — the county’s adjusted case rate dropped by one and a half cases per day per 100,000 residents, its positivity rate dropped by 0.5% and its health equity quartile positivity rate dropped by 0.8%.
“Everything is looking so good, the metrics are fantastic, California is doing so great,” Newel recalled her thoughts to be prior to reading an article in the New York Times. “I read (it) like I do every morning and wow, I felt kind of despondent after that.”
But it’s no time to rush to judgment. A lot of the places considered “hot spots” are the same ones where governors have lifted mask restrictions and not taken virus response very seriously. Newel said they are the states with vaccine naysayers, states where local health jurisdictions have received the same vaccines per capita as Santa Cruz County but they have to beg their constituents to consider inoculation.
Newel told physicians and other medical staff in a weekly call, soon to be every other week like the health leadership press conferences as the move to orange tier commences, that there was a 40% increase in COVID-19 cases in Michigan over the last two weeks.
“(Here) we have a belief in science, a belief in being guided by science rather than politics,” Newel said.
Though a travel advisory asking residents not to travel further than 120 miles from their home is in effect in California, it isn’t enforced and there is a likelihood that variants could be carried into the area from those who have gone away. People can travel, Newel said, but they need to quarantine for at least 10 days afterward in order to protect the community even if they’ve been vaccinated.
“The combination of the opening of the economy, the spring break travel and the opening of the schools further including sports that really has me concerned — for the whole state, not just Santa Cruz,” Newel said. “The worry is that every time we’ve opened the economy we’ve had a surge following it. It happened during the summer and around the holidays.”
But there’s still a very solid chance the county moves down one more tier, to the yellow or “minimal” tier in three weeks. More than 150,000 shots had gone into local arms as of Tuesday, with just a small portion being the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine, Newel said. A portion of society is partially vaccinated, so the remaining are fully vaccinated; it’s safe to say that not even half of those who have been vaccinated are fully vaccinated.
A few weeks ago the county had administered at least one dose to onethird of eligible adults. Today, that figure is 95,000 or 43% of the eligible 220,000 individuals older than age 16 in the county, Newel said.
With the onboarding of Santa Cruz County into the state’s Blue Shield vaccine administrator and MyTurn appointment scheduler systems, Newel is looking forward and hoping for the best. Even if a fourth wave of the virus comes rushing in, it should still be smaller and cause far fewer deaths due to the progress made around vaccination.
“Time will tell. I know that’s what I’ve been saying for the last 15 months,” Newel said with a laugh. “But we’ve had surprises along the way.”