Gov. Newsom lifts California’s COVID-19 stay-at-home orders
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday lifted the regional stay-at-home orders across the state — allowing restaurants to resume outdoor dining amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re seeing a flattening of the curve. Everything that should be up is up, everything that should be down is down,” Newsom said at the press conference.
He said the hard-hit Golden State is “not out of the woods,” but its models suggest that it has overcome the most “challenging” part of the latest wave.
“We are in a position — projecting four weeks forward with a significant decline in the case rates, positivity rates — we are anticipating still more decline in hospitalizations and more declines in ICUs, and that’s why we’re lifting that stay-at-home order effective immediately today,” he said.
The state will return to a colored tier system that dictates restrictions by county based on the risk of community transmission.
The strict lockdown had been in place in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California — the majority of counties in the Golden State.
“Together, we changed our activities knowing our short-term sacrifices would lead to longer-term gains,” Dr. Tomas Aragon, the state’s public health director, said in a statement. “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.”
Most counties will go into the most restrictive purple tier, representing “widespread risk” but allowing for outdoor dining, hair and nail salons to be open, as well as outdoor church services. Bars that only serve drinks cannot reopen.
It wasn’t yet clear whether Newsom’s move would lead to an easing of the stay-at-home restrictions in Los Angeles County — which has emerged as the national epicenter of the outbreak.
In less than a month, more than 5,000 people have died of the illness in the county alone, the Los Angeles Times reported.
But LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, a Republican, voiced support for reopening businesses, saying the state has to balance public health with “devastating social, emotional and economic impacts of this virus.”
“I support following the Governor’s recommended guidelines for Southern California, and reopening outdoor dining, personal care services and other industries that were previously closed by these orders,” she said.
Officials in other major counties indicated that they will soon lift local restrictions.
“We will be moving forward with some limited re-openings, including outdoor dining and personal services,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed tweeted.
As case numbers surged, Newsom announced the regional stay-at-home orders on Dec. 3 in an effort to reduce the load on hospitals.
While state data shows hospital systems in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley remain strained, the governor’s officer told officials Sunday that models project ICU capacity in those areas will pass 15 percent — a threshold for lifting shutdowns — in the next month.
With Post wires