California stay home order has been lifted
Outdoor dining, services are now widely allowed
MONTEREY >> Outdoor dining, outside hair and nail salons, and other “non-essential” businesses and activities can resume with limited capacity in Monterey County after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement the state’s regional stay-at-home order has been lifted amid improving COVID-19 trends.
Two weeks after the order was extended indefinitely and tied to regional ICU bed capacity, state health officials decided to lift the order, citing “positive signs that the virus is spreading at a slower rate across the state,” according to a state Public Health Department release.
The state is also lifting a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. “Californians heard the urgent message to stay home as much as possible and accepted that challenge to slow the surge and save lives,” state Public Health Officer and Public Health Department director Dr. Tomás Aragón said in the release. “Together, we changed our activities knowing our short-term sacrifices would lead to longer-term gains. COVID-19 is still here and still deadly, so our work is not over, but it’s important to recognize our collective actions saved lives and we are turning a critical corner.”
“California is slowly starting to emerge from the most dangerous surge of this pandemic yet, which is the light at the end of the tunnel we’ve been hoping for,” state Health and Human Services secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said. “Seven weeks ago, our hospitals and front-line medical workers were stretched to their limits, but Californians heard the urgent message to stay home when possible and our surge after the December holidays did not overwhelm the health care system to the degree we had feared.”
The Bay Area region, which includes Monterey County, is at 23.4% ICU bed
capacity which would have qualified the region to lift the order on its own anyway. It had dipped to a third of that in the last several weeks.
Local hospital ICU bed capacity was not available, although Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula said it had seven COVID-19 patients in ICU beds and 14 total ICU patients in the hospital’s 20 ICU beds.
Counties will now return to the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy tier system that ranks them by COVID-19 metrics such as case rate per 100,000 population and test positivity rates. It also sets looser restrictions on businesses and activities than the stay-at-home order, although local health officials can decide to continue tougher restrictions.
Monterey County, which has been in the “widespread” or purple tier since the system was established last summer, is currently recording 98.5 cases per 100,000 population, and a seven-day test positivity rate of 18.6% as well as a “health equity” test positivity rate of 27.7% among the residents in its poorest census tracts, according to the state’s data.
County Health Officer Dr. Edward Moreno thanked county residents for following the stay-at-home order and said it was as a result of “everyone doing their part to slow transmission of the virus that the state was able to lift the order” and allow certain businesses to reopen with the purple tier restrictions. Moreno also warned local residents, “now is not the time to let down your guard” with regard to observing safety measures, including wearing masks, washing hands regularly, maintaining social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings with people outside the immediate household.
County health spokeswoman Karen Smith said Moreno is not considering a local extension of the order and its restrictions.
Community Hospital spokeswoman Monica Sciuto said hospital officials had seen a “slight decrease” in people testing positive for COVID-19 and being treated in our hospital over the last two weeks, calling it “good news” and acknowledging the “great need for businesses to open their doors and to provide vital employment for our community.”
But she urged everyone to “remain vigilant” on reducing the spread by observing
safety measures, noting there’s “still a long way to go until our community is sufficiently vaccinated and we can reopen and return to normal.”.
Sciuto also noted that with the Super Bowl approaching, it remains important for people to stay home and not invite anyone outside the immediate household to their homes since that “poses one of the greatest risks of spreading COVID-19.”
“We want to continue on a positive track to recovery and an event like that could set back our community and strain the health care system even longer,” she said.
Installed in early December, the order divided counties into regions which were then subject to a shutdown of all non-essential business and activity if they fell below 15% ICU bed capacity.
In mid-January, with COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations still surging, state health officials extended the order indefinitely and indicated it would be lifted once four-week regional ICU bed capacity projections rose to at least 15%. Southern California and San Joaquin Valley regional ICU bed capacity both remain below that limit, but state health officials have indicated they expect them to improve soon though they declined to release those projections.
As of Monday afternoon, county health was reporting a total of 37,285 confirmed cases of COVID-19, along with 175 current hospitalizations and 259 deaths with the virus.