What’s next for restaurants, hair salons, youth sports as California ends stay-at-home order.
California’s latest attempt to resume public life in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic came seemingly out of the blue.
Since December, people across the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California had been ordered not to leave their homes except for essential tasks as hospitals struggled to keep up with a surge of COVID-19 patients.
But word started trickling out late Sunday that those orders were coming to an end, even as the state continued to record tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases and hundreds of deaths each day.
Here’s what has changed, and what it means for you.
Q Why is Gov. Gavin Newsom lifting California’s shelter-in-place order?
A The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19, and the number being treated in intensive care units — where the critically ill are treated — has fallen substantially in recent weeks, as has the number of new coronavirus cases, according to data compiled by this news organization.
“We have battled our way through the most challenging surge and are seeing light at the end of that proverbial tunnel,” Newsom said Monday.
Over the next four weeks, officials say, state projections show the Bay Area, Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley will all have well over 15% capacity in their ICUs, the threshold that triggered the restrictions back in December.
But there has been little transparency from the state about what data goes in to making those projections, and critics say the decision to lift the restrictions now strikes them as arbitrary. The state’s sevenday average for new cases stood at 27,256 as of Sunday, well above the 16,768 new cases California was averaging on Dec. 3, the day Newsom announced plans for the new shelter order.
Officials previously lifted the stay-home order in the Sacramento region on Jan. 12. ICU capacity in California’s far-northern region never fell low enough to trigger the order.
Q What restrictions are in place now that the shelter order is done?
A California is now back to the colorcoded reopening tier system it used through the late summer and fall. That system assigns each of the state’s 58 counties to a tier based on how many coronavirus cases they report and what percentage of tests for the virus come back positive.
As of Monday, almost all of the state, and every county in the Bay Area, was in the most restrictive of the system’s four levels — the purple tier, which indicates coronavirus is “widespread.”
The only exceptions: Mariposa, Alpine and Trinity counties are in the second-highest red tier, and Sierra County is in the orange tier. None are in the scale’s least-restrictive yellow tier.
Q Does this mean I can go to restaurants again? How about getting a haircut?
A Restaurants can reopen for outdoor dining in purple-tier counties. Same for wineries, bars and breweries that serve food. Indoor dining remains prohibited.
Barbershops, hair salons, nail salons and other personal service businesses can reopen as well.
They are allowed to operate indoors with modifications.
Other types of businesses can reopen, including campgrounds, outdoor museums and outdoor “family entertainment centers” such as mini golf courses.
The state’s reopening plan gives counties the power to set their own restrictions. So if a county decides a given activity is too risky, local officials can shut it down even if state rules allow it.
Q Will the Bay Area enforce tighter restrictions?
A Not this time. Back in early December, five BayArea counties instituted their own shelter-in-place order before their region’s ICU capacity triggered the stay-home order from the state.
On Monday, however, each of those five counties — Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Francisco — said they planned to allow activities in the purple tier, such as outdoor dining, that they previously shut down. Q
What’s the next step for reopening? A If all goes well and cases continue to fall, get ready to track your tiers again. When case rates were declining last summer and fall, residents closely followed developments as their counties moved through the tier system and restrictions were loosened, only to watch them slide back amid the surge in postThanksgiving cases and hospitalizations.
Q What does this mean for schools?
A Not much — state officials said in December that their stay-home order did not affect guidance for K-12 schools. Those that had already resumed in-person learning were allowed to stay open through the latest lockdown.
Newsom in December announced a $2 billion plan to begin reopening schools as soon as midFebruary. Several large school districts took issue with the proposal, and the slow rollout of coronavirus vaccines to teachers and other school workers could further delay the process.
Q What about youth sports?
A Teams were allowed to hold distanced workouts, but not competitions, under the stayhome order.
Counties in the purple tier can resume competitions in certain sports the state classifies as “outdoor low-contact” activities under guidance released in December, including cross country, track and field, golf and swimming. Leagues within the California Interscholastic Federation must also finalize plans for a return to play before those sports can resume. Other sports will have to wait.
Several youth sports coaches have asked the state to separate sports from the tiered reopening system. Football coaches in particular have been concerned about the guidance because it requires counties to reach the orange tier, the second-least restrictive, for that sport to resume. It’s unclear whether that will sway the state to change its rules.
As it stands now, baseball and softball teams can only return once their counties reach the red tier, and counties must reach the yellow tier for basketball to resume.