Kern County takes next steps toward reopening
With a handle on the spread of COVID-19, Kern County is proceeding through the state’s phases of recovery, adding dine-in restaurants and hair salons and barbershops to the businesses now allowed to open to the public, albeit with public health modifications.
Kern County received a variance from the state, allowing it to move through the progressive phases of the state’s recovery roadmap more quickly than the state as a whole.
Los Angeles County has requested a variance, as well, but as of Thursday, did not yet have it granted.
With testing capacity increased, more than 23,000 of Kern County’s 900,000 residents have been tested, with a rate of positive test results of 8%, one benchmark for the state variance. The county has recorded 2,007 positive cases, and 96% of those have either recovered or are treating themselves at home, Chief Administrative Officer Ryan Alsop said Thursday.
Of the remaining 4%, 2% are hospitalized and 2% have died, a total of 37 people, he said. More than half the deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the county have occurred in skilled nursing facilities, which are receiving additional attention to
address the problems there. This includes additional testing of staff and residents.
The county offices themselves are gradually transitioning to be fully open to the public, Alsop said.
The county’s main administrative building in Bakersfield will reopen to the public on Monday, with public health measures in place.
Even though the offices will be open, county officials encourage residents to continue to attend to whatever business they can via phone or online, and to make appointments for necessary in-person business. This will help manage the amount of people in the buildings and better ensure safe distancing, officials said.
Some branches of the Kern County Library will begin offering curbside services on June 15 for customers to pickup requested materials and return items. However, none of the branches in the Antelope Valley portion of the county are on the list; the nearest branch to offer the curbside service is in Tehachapi.
The library call center will reopen on Monday to help with public requests and registration for the online summer reading program. The call center may be reached at 661-868-0701.
Materials returned to the library are quarantined for three days before they are available again for circulation, library officials said.
Kern County is also offering a forgivable loan program to small businesses impacted by COVID-19. Kern Recovers has $25 million to provide loans of up to $75,000 each to local small businesses to directly counter those impacts.
The loans are available only to those businesses with fewer than 50 employees and less than $5 million in annual revenue.
“We are targeting those businesses in our community most severely impacted by the governor’s order due to the response to COVID,” Alsop said. “Those are businesses that have been substantially curtailed; restaurants are an example of that.”
Information on how to qualify is on the county website, kerncounty.com.
As the county continues to emerge from the strict regulations of the Safer at Home orders, continued adherence to public health guidelines, including social distancing, hand washing and staying home if your are sick, is important to keep control of the pandemic.
“COVID-19 is here in our community. It is not going away,” Alsop said.
These measures have always been about managing the impact on the health care system, so that it maintains capability of taking care of virus patients and the other day-to-day illnesses and injuries.