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Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to lift stay-at-home orders for regional coronaviruses in California on Monday, a change that could allow restaurants and gyms in many counties to reopen restaurants and outdoor services.
All counties will revert to the color tier system which assigns local risk levels based on the number of cases and rates of positive test results for COVID-19 infections, according to people briefed on the plan by the governor’s office. .
Most counties will fall into the “generalized” risk level, which allows hair salons to offer limited services indoors but restricts many other non-essential business operations indoors. The change is expected to take effect immediately after Newsom’s announcement on Monday.
It is far from clear whether the decision will lead to a relaxation of stay-at-home rules in Los Angeles County, which has become a national coronavirus epicenter with hospitals overwhelmed by patients. In less than a month, more than 5,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the county alone.
Still, the outdoor dining ban has been very controversial, with some elected officials and the restaurant industry fighting in court and trying to overturn it. Officials in some other southern California counties have been even more critical of the state-imposed rules and urged Newsom to give them more local control.
The governor announced regional stay-at-home orders on Dec. 3 in an attempt to ease pressure on hospitals as the number of cases soared. As state data shows Southern California and San Joaquin Valley hospital systems remain under stress, the Newsom administration told officials on Sunday that models predict the capacity of intensive care units in those areas. areas will exceed 15% – a threshold for lifting regional closures – over the next four weeks.
State officials never disclosed full details of how the four-week intensive care calculations were performed. And while services were allowed to reopen in the Sacramento area on December 13, daily reports on available intensive care beds never approached the 15% threshold deemed necessary to reverse the restrictions. The capacity of intensive care units in the northern California area, which is not under order to stay at home, continued to stay above state closure benchmarks.
The Bay Area, which reported 23.4% capacity, remained under the stay-at-home order due to a four-week projection of a decrease in the availability of hospital beds. Southern California showed no intensive care capacity and the San Joaquin Valley area reported 1.3%, state data showed on Saturday.
John Myers and Paloma Esquivel contributed to this report.
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