San Benito County gets green light to reopen

Dine-in eating at restaurants is allowed to return but they must keep their bar areas closed.

Eighteen of California’s 58 counties, including San Benito to the east of Monterey, have now received the green light to move forward with more rapid reopening of their economies.

By meeting extensive criteria set by the state health department, these counties will be allowed to move through Phase 2 of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan at an accelerated rate but can’t move on to Phase 3.

What does that mean? Dine-in eating at restaurants is allowed to return, but their bar areas must remain closed — same goes for standalone bars. Shopping malls and other destination retail can reopen, but indoor museums, zoos and libraries will remain closed. Schools — with modifications — may reopen, but university campuses cannot.

The list of counties has grown each day since Newsom announced the Phase 2 plans earlier this week. To receive the OK, counties (usually their public health director) were required to submit a 12-page “local variance attestation,” along with letters of support from their boards of supervisors, local hospital officials and optional — but “strongly recommended” — questions on future containment strategy. Some submissions have run longer than 50 pages.

The form sets forth a number of criteria counties are required to meet to prove their “readiness.”

• One or fewer cases per 10,000 residents the past 14 days.

• No deaths for the past 14 days.

• Minimum daily testing of 1.5 per 1,000 residents, with recommendation of 2 per 1,000.

• Testing sites within 30 minutes of 75% of urban residents and 60 minutes of 75% of rural residents.

• Fifteen contact tracers for every 100,000 residents.

• Temporary housing available for 15% of population experiencing homelessness.

• Hospital capacity for 35% surge in COVID-19 patients.

• A “robust” plan to protect

hospital workers and provide personal protective equipment.

• A 14-day supply and a documented supply chain of PPE for skilled nursing facilities.

The counties in addition to San Benito to have met the readiness criteria Thursday morning were mostly rural and sparsely populated: Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Glenn, Lassen, Nevada, Mariposa, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Tehama, Tuolumne, Yuba, and Sutter.

San Benito County, with a population of 62,000, documented six positive COVID-19 cases and no deaths from the virus in the county from April 28 to May 12. The county has established a contact-tracing team of 10 and said it is working

closely with neighboring Monterey County, which hasn’t yet been approved for accelerated reopening.

Counties in the Bay Area have been under even stricter restrictions than the rest of the state. On Monday, Newsom moved California into the early stages of Phase 2, allowing for nonessential business to reopen for curbside retail. These 18 counties have been approved to go further, allowing in-person shopping and dining.

Next week, at least three Bay Area counties will modify their orders to fall in line with the early stage of Newsom’s Phase 2. San Francisco, San Mateo and Alameda counties have announced plans to allow businesses to resume more operations beginning Monday.