Businesses on brink of reopening
Virus cases: Plummeting numbers mean establishments soon will be opening doors
Restaurants, museums, movie theaters, gyms, retail stores and more in Long Beach will be able to open further in the coming days — including allowing a limited amount of indoor dining for the first time in about a year — as the city’s coronavirus metrics continue to trend downward.
The Aquarium of the Pacific also will be able to allow some customers inside.
Long Beach Mayor Robert announced in a Thursday briefing that the city will align with state regulations for the second-most restrictive red tier for corona
virus management when Los Angeles County enters that level, which he said will likely happen “in the next couple days.” An announcement by Gov. Gavin Newsom was imminent, Garcia said.
The move to the red tier will depend on the state’s ongoing effort to administer 2 million vaccines in underserved areas; once officials meet that target, L.A. County will be eligible to enter the red tier. The state’s vaccination dashboard, which was updated Thursday, showed that 1,971,784 of those doses had been administered so far, and Newsom said earlier this week that he expects to meet the 2 million target today.
The news out of Long Beach came shortly before Los Angeles County announced its own red tier regulations, which largely matched up with Long Beach’s. L.A. County officials, though, said they believe further reopenings won’t be allowed until Monday-toWednesday of next week.
But whenever Los Angeles County enters the red tier, Garcia said, Long Beach will make the following changes to its health order:
• Maximum capacity in retail stores will move from 25% to 50%.
• Museums and aquariums can open indoors with 25% capacity.
• Movie theaters can reopen with 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is lower.
• Fitness centers and gyms can reopen to limited indoors training with about 10% capacity.
• Restaurants can reopen indoors with 25% capacity.
“There will be rules and regulations as it relates to restaurants and these other facilities, as far as distancing inside and (personal protective equipment) protocol,” Garcia said. “So there will be additional requirements that are put in place.”
Garcia did not elaborate
City Health Officer Dr. Anissa Davis speaks during a news conference Thursday, telling residents to continue taking precautions to prevent the further spread of the virus.
specifically on what those regulations would be. But L.A. County’s health order will require at least 8 feet between tables, a maximum of six people — all from the same household — at each table, an HVAC system that is in good working order and has been evaluated, and increased ventilation to the maximum extent possible.
Restaurant owners and managers in Long Beach said Thursday afternoon that they were excited about the news — though some held off on making any concrete plans to reopen indoors.
“I want to stop losing money,” said John Sangmeister, managing partner at Gladstone’s, adding he’s eager to get back to full capacity. Sangmeister said that there are no plans yet to reopen the indoor portion of the restaurant this weekend, but that might change.
John Morris, owner at Boathouse on the Bay, said much the same.
“It will be nice to be open, especially with the weather the way it is,” he said. “I know a lot of the restaurants within the city have struggled, especially with restaurants that had to rearrange their operations to open with outdoor parklets. We’re lucky to have had a beautiful patio with a view this entire time.
“I think that once we get the final say-so and make adjustments and have the explicit OK to open, we will do that,” Morris added. “We will definitely be open this weekend as long as we are able to.”
Garcia, meanwhile, had other good news for those looking for something to do after months being stuck at home: Starting April 1, he said, Long Beach will look “at outdoor live events that may occur” with limited attendance.
But business and event reopenings weren’t the only focus of Garcia’s briefing. He also announced that Long Beach on Thursday began vaccinating transit workers, janitors, custodians and workers at the Long Beach Airport, aligning with a recent state expansion of vaccination eligibility.
And Long Beach, Garcia said, today will begin inoculating people with underlying health conditions who are at least 16 years old, ahead of the statewide vaccine rollout for that group on Monday. Conditions that will qualify include pregnancy, cancer, kidney disease, pulmonary disease, Down syndrome, sickle cell disease, severe obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart conditions such as heart failure or coronary artery disease, and having a weakened immune system from a solid organ transplant.
While Thursday’s announcements were good news for Long Beach, the coronavirus still poses a threat in the city; another 10 Long Beach residents died from coronavirus-related causes, officials announced, bringing the city’s death toll to 879.
But overall, the metrics tracking the spread and impact of the virus in Long Beach are headed in the right direction. An updated count of coronavirus cases identified so far in Long Beach actually showed a decrease of 13 cases from the day prior due to data processing updates at the local and state levels, according to a city statement.
There have been 51,571 cases reported in Long Beach since the pandemic began, and about 49,184 people — or 95% of those who have tested positive — have since recovered.
The city’s new daily case rate, meanwhile, remained stable at 5.6 per 100,000 people, and the positive testing rate dipped to 2.2% from 2.3% on Wednesday.
The number of people being treated for the virus in local hospitals fell from 70 on Wednesday to 65 on Thursday. And Long Beach administered 3,012 more vaccine doses, bringing the total so far to 142,219. As of Thursday, about 17.9% of Long Beach residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
City Health Officer Dr. Anissa Davis, though, urged residents on Thursday to continue taking precautions to prevent the further spread of the virus.
“Please don’t become lax in adhering to our health order,” she said. “We’re still in the middle of a pandemic that continues to cause infections, hospitalizations and deaths in Long Beach.
“Protocols are in place for everyone’s safety,” Davis added, “and we must all continue to do our part to reduce the spread of COVID-19.”