SIX BAY AREA COUNTIES TO ‘SHELTER IN PLACE’
The order will be in place until April 7
Six Bay Area counties announced a virtual public lockdown in the face of the rapidly expanding coronavirus pandemic aimed at slowing transmission of the deadly COVID-19 respiratory disease.
Health officers for Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and the city of Berkeley, which has its own independent public health authority, announced the new “shelter in place” restrictions Monday amid a head-spinning flurry of new limits on public gatherings across the state and country.
“Temporarily changing our routine is absolutely necessary to slow the spread of this pandemic,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County Public Health Officer. “The Health Officers from the largest jurisdictions in the San Francisco Bay Area are united and we are taking this step together to offer the best protection to our respective communities.”
The announcement involves a legal order from the health officers of those counties directing their respective residents to shelter at home for three weeks beginning at midnight March 17. The order limits activity, travel and business functions to only the most essential needs. The order will be in place until April 7 and could be amended to end later or sooner, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said Monday.
The order defines essential activities as necessary for the health and safety for individuals and their families. Essential businesses allowed to operate during the recommended action include health care operations; businesses that provide food, shelter, and social services, and other necessities of life for economically disadvantaged or
otherwise needy individuals; fresh and non-perishable food retailers (including convenience stores); pharmacies; child care facilities; gas stations; banks; laundry businesses and services necessary for maintaining the safety, sanitation and essential operation of a residence.
In addition, health care, law and safety, and essential government functions will continue under the recommended action.
Marin County Health Officer Matt Willis said “essential things we need will be available to us.”
“Grocery stores will remain open,” Willis said. “You can get your medicine from your pharmacy, you can still visit your doctor. We can all expect to experience some cabin fever. You can still walk your dog.”
Health officers acknowledged Monday how difficult the extraordinary and unprecedented measures will be for families already struggling to cope with the rapid upending of their lives, with children told to stay home from schools, businesses urging employees to work from home where possible and events
canceled. But they said the dire threat of the outbreak makes a regional response necessary.
“We are in a rough place, and we are going to have difficult times ahead of us,” San Mateo County Health Officer Scott Morrow said. “The measures we’re putting in place are temporary, but they will last longer than any of us want. This is the time to unite as a community, come to each other’s aid and dig really deep to find your best inner self and pull out all the compassion, gratitude and kindness you can.”
The guidance, they said, comes after substantial input from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and best practices from other health officials around the world.
Grant Colfax, the director of San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, said health officers from all six counties conferred over the weekend and concluded that they needed to put in place the new restrictions as soon as possible.
“Every hour counts,” Colfax said. “The evidence tells us that now is the time to implement this step.”
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said that violation of the order is “enforceable as a misdemeanor” but added that
“that is an absolute last resort.”
“We’re looking for voluntary compliance,” he said. “If we do get called to those situations, we’re going to try to educate the public.”
The shelter-at-home order follows new data of increasing local transmission of COVID-19, including 258 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 4 deaths shared by the seven jurisdictions, as of March 15, the health officers said. The Bay Area’s collected confirmed cases is more than half of California’s case count, they added, and that does not account for the rapidly increasing number of assumed cases of community transmission.
As testing capacity increases, the health officers said, the number of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases is expected to increase markedly.
Shelter in place is a term typically used in a public safety context in which residents, workers and students are urged to stay indoors where they are, and has been used in cases of police activity near schools or neighborhoods or toxic fumes from refinery fires.
The Bay Area has been at the center of the viral outbreak in the state and is one of the nation’s hot
spots for infections. There are at least 335 confirmed cases statewide and six deaths, two of which were in Santa Clara County.
Of the Bay Area counties urging shelter in place, by Monday morning Santa Clara County had 114 confirmed cases, San Mateo 42, San Francisco 40, Contra Costa 30, Alameda and Berkeley 18, and Marin 9.
The latest announcement follows a week of progressively tightening government restrictions and guidelines against public gatherings to slow the COVID-19 outbreak. On Sunday, Governor Gavin Newsom’s called for closing bars and nightclubs, limiting restaurant service and for the elderly to hunker down at home.
Newsom’s guidelines — which he suggested would be enforced if needed — came as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for no gatherings of 50 or more for eight weeks. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive order closing bars, nightclubs, gymnasiums, theaters, bowling alleys and restricting restaurant service to takeout.
Newsom on Monday was expected to announce new protections for renters who fear losing their apartments
as shutdowns put them out of work. There governor is also expected later today to clarify his latest order.
Monday also marked the start of widespread school closures affecting about half of districts around the state, including Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, with many attempting to teach students online. New York City and Los Angeles — the nation’s two largest districts — also are closing.
Last week saw a dizzying pace of clampdowns on public life as government officials around the world struggle to slow the COVID-19 respiratory disease pandemic that has infected at least 153,000 and killed some 6,000 in more than 143 countries. The federal government added much of Europe, where the outbreak has grown exponentially, to travel restrictions that already included mainland China, where it originated.
Newsom last week urged a statewide ban on gatherings of more than 250 people, said smaller events can proceed only if those in attendance can be kept six feet apart, and events involving the elderly or unhealthy who are more vulnerable should be limited to no more than 10.