First Bay Area Easing of Restrictions Coming This Week
The Public Health Officers of the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara as well as the City of Berkeley will later this week issue revised shelter-in-place orders that largely keep the current restrictions in place and extend them through May.
What Might Change? According to the Mercury News, “officials may open access to more parks and allow more outdoor activities that don’t violate social distancing rules”
Napa and Santa Cruz counties, which are not part of the 6-county Bay Area alliance, have recently reduced restrictions on construction along with beach and park access.
Please note this is an evolving news story and details may change quickly.
New “Shelter-in-Place” Orders Coming
- Six Bay Area counties plus Berkeley announce joint statement.
- Full details will be announced “later this week”
- Revised order will largely keep current restrictions in place
- Shelter-in-Place extended from May 3 to end of May
- Limited easing of restrictions coming for “small number of lower-risk activities”
- There is not indication yet as to what is considered a low-risk activity
The new order will include limited easing of specific restrictions for a small number of lower-risk activities.
The press statement doesn’t give any indication as to what these “lower-risk” activities are, or which day this week the revised orders will be announced.
The shelter-in-place orders in effect across the seven separate jurisdictions are set to expire on May 3, 2020 but will be extended through the end of May.
Thanks to the collective effort and sacrifice of the 7 million residents across our jurisdictions, we have made substantial progress in slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, ensuring our local hospitals are not overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, and saving lives. At this stage of the pandemic, however, it is critical that our collective efforts continue so that we do not lose the progress we have achieved together. Hospitalizations have leveled, but more work is needed to safely re-open our communities. Prematurely lifting restrictions could easily lead to a large surge in cases.
The Health Officers will also release a set of broad indicators that will be used to track progress in preparedness and response to COVID-19, in alignment with the framework being used by the State of California. Future easing of restrictions requires that each jurisdiction and various sectors continue to rapidly build critical infrastructure and systems to respond to and control the spread of coronavirus infections and to ensure the health care system’s ability to meet demand.
This global COVID-19 pandemic is still in its early stages. The virus spreads easily, testing capacity is limited and expanding slowly, and vaccine development is just beginning. We expect to be responding to COVID-19 in our communities for a long time. As effective as our efforts have been, if we move too fast to ease restrictions, the potential of exponential spread could have grave impacts to health and wellness of our residents as well as the economy.
The Health Officers of these seven jurisdictions have been working closely together in leading a unified, regional approach, to protect the health and safety of our residents. Details regarding this next phase will be shared later in the week, along with the updated order.
