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By the staff of the Daily Post
Outdoor-operating restaurants in Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View and other communities in Santa Clara County will have to switch to take-out only under a new lockdown order declared yesterday by manager Dr Sara Cody county health.
Governor Gavin Newsom said on Thursday that four regions of the state should move to a full stay at home order, similar to one imposed in March, due to the growing number of people with Covid in intensive care units hospitals. The only area that was not placed under the order was the Bay Area.
However, today health workers in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and Marin counties and the city of Berkeley decided that they would switch to stay-at-home mode on their own. .
San Mateo County has decided not to join with other counties in locking down their communities.
“We recognize the reality of the pandemic fatigue that residents are experiencing and the need to find sources of support during this difficult time,” San Mateo County Health Chief Louise Rogers said in a statement. “Our collective goal must be to find ways to support each other safely during this crisis, while limiting the gathering and adhering to the cover of the face.”
In Santa Clara County and the other five jurisdictions, all “non-core businesses” will be required to shut down all domestic and foreign operations.
The order will close all restaurants (except take-out), wineries, hair and nail salons, card rooms, and fitness centers.
Stores must limit their indoor capacity to 20%.
The closed counties’ statement does not indicate whether they have studied the economic impact of business closures. Previously, Santa Clara County officials said they did not conduct any such research. A Yelp study found that 800 national businesses are closing in the pandemic every day.
Schools that have already reopened in-person classes will be allowed to continue and those decisions will be left to the officials in each county.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on ABC News “This Week” Sunday that the nation should “close bars and keep schools open.”
“The default position should be to do your best within reason to keep children in school or to get them back to school,” Fauci said. “The spread among children and among children is not really that great at all, not as one would have suspected.”
Newsom’s order was not supposed to go into effect until a region has less than 15% of its intensive care unit beds. Newsom said Thursday that the Bay Area as a whole is unlikely to reach that threshold until mid-December.
The five Bay Area counties and the city of Berkeley have chosen to implement the order now as new cases and hospitalizations skyrocket in the state. Los Angeles County has already done so.
All five counties said the restrictions would remain in place until Jan.4. However, when the first stay-at-home order was imposed in March, it was only supposed to last three weeks and was extended for several months as the criteria for lifting the order changed frequently.
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