L.A. County: Will officials allow indoor dining soon? Public Health Department officials are set to decide today
Los Angeles County remains on the cusp of entering the red tier for its coronavirus management — the state’s secondmost-restrictive level — but it’s still unclear whether that means restaurants will be able to open indoor dining any time soon.
Public Health Department Director Barbara Ferrer said in a Wednesday briefing that L.A. County will be eligible to move from the state’s most restrictive purple tier next Wednesday, based on its current metrics — and, she said, the change likely will happen before then. That’s because a recent tweak to the state’s health order will allow the county to move tiers once 2 million vaccine doses have been administered in underserved areas across California.
As of Wednesday, the state had given out 1.9 million of those vaccines, and Gov. Gavin Newsom said California likely will
hit the 2 million target by Friday.
Though indoor dining is allowed in the red tier — so long as capacity is capped at 100 people or 25%, whichever is lower — Ferrer has signaled that L.A. County may choose to maintain stricter regulations than the state allows based on research that shows how easily the coronavirus can spread indoors.
On Wednesday, Ferrer said she still doesn’t know which direction the county will take on indoor dining once it moves into the red tier. But she said she expected to have that answer today.
“We’re looking at sort of what is happening across the rest of the state,” she said, “and we’re looking at what we’ve learned about what can create as much safety as possible when people are indoors.”
What is clear now, Ferrer said, is that people will have to continue to protect themselves and others against spreading the virus. If they do, she said, more good news could come to L.A. County soon.
“I am going to urge all the businesses to, tomorrow, take a hard look at the directives,” Ferrer said. “We do need everybody to be 100% compliant with them so we really can stay on this recovery journey and make progress.
“Our case rates are really low right now,” she added, “and if we continue to make good progress, I see in the future we could get ourselves to (the orange tier) in a few weeks as well. But it takes all of us to work on this.”
Tuesday’s update — which occurred exactly a year after L.A. County reported its first coronavirus-related death — came as the county reported 119 more people had died from COVID-19-related causes, bringing the total so far to 22,213.
L.A. County also reported 1,514 new coronavirus cases, though Ferrer said that number included a few hundred from a backlog. There have been 206,713 cases identified in the county throughout the pandemic.
There were also 1,079 residents being treated for the virus in hospitals Wednesday, about 30% of whom were in intensive care units.
Los Angeles County, meanwhile, continues vaccinating as many people as possible while looking toward the eventual expansion of eligible groups — though the rain hindered inoculation efforts for at least a day.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office, for example, closed all vaccine sites in the city Wednesday because of the rain; all delayed appointments have been rescheduled for the same time Saturday.
Ferrer, for her part, said Los Angeles County is preparing to expand its vaccination program, as the state now considers custodians, janitors, public transit workers and airport ground crew to be eligible for inoculation. The county is working with employers to coordinate appointments, Ferrer said, and custodians and janitors specifically will have restricted appointments at the L.A.
County Office of Education in Downey on Saturday and at The Forum in Inglewood on Saturday and Sunday.
The county also is looking ahead to Monday, when the state will expand vaccine eligibility to include folks with certain underlying conditions ages 16 and up. But ensuring an adequate supply for that group, Ferrer said, will be difficult because the county doesn’t have a good estimate of how many people fall into that category, unlike the groups of people that have been eligible so far.
In cities that operate their own independent health departments:
Long Beach reported one new death, for a total of 869 and 22 new cases, for a total of 51,584.
Pasadena reported two new deaths, for a total of 322, and five new cases, for a total of 11,003.