California lifted local home orders in the state on Monday in response to improvement coronavirus conditions, which bring the state back to a system of provincial restrictions, state health officials announced. CBS San Francisco reports that the move paves the way for a return to limited restaurants, religious services and other activities. Governor Gavin Newsom responded to the revoked order Monday afternoon.
The order was in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, which covers the majority of the provinces of the state. The change will allow businesses such as restaurants to resume outdoor activities in many areas, although local officials prefer to continue with stricter rules. The state also lifts a curfew from 22:00 to 05:00.
“Together we have changed our activities in the knowledge that our short-term sacrifices would lead to long-term gains. COVID-19 is still here and is deadly, so our work is not over, but it is important to recognize that we “Joint action has saved lives and we are making a critical turn,” said Dr. Tomas Aragon, the state’s director of public health, said in a statement.
The decision is related to the improvement of trends in the infection rate, hospitalizations and capacity for intensive care units as well as vaccinations.
Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP
Newsom instituted the stay-at-home order in December as coronavirus cases worsened. Under the system, a region with more provinces would have to close most businesses and order people to stay at home if the ICU capacity fell below 15%. A Northern California region with 11 counties was never under command. The Greater Sacramento region left the order last week. The state makes the decisions based on four-week projections showing that ICU capacity is improving, but officials did not disclose the data behind the forecasts.
Over the weekend, the ICU capacity of the San Francisco Bay Area rose to 23%, while the San Joaquin Valley increased to 1.3%, for the first time above zero. The enormous Southern California region, the most populous, remains at no ICU capacity.
Dr Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at UCSF, told CBS San Francisco that she was encouraged by the availability of the ICU in the region. She sees hospital admissions first-hand at Zuckerberg San Francisco General, where she also works.
“We did not see the boom that was predicted. We saw it from Thanksgiving, and then it was not predicted at all with Christmas and New Year,” she said.
Early last year, the state developed a system of color-coded levels that determines the level of restrictions on businesses and individuals based on virus conditions in each of the 58 counties in California. Most counties will now return to the most limited purple level, allowing outdoor dining, hair and nail salons open, and outdoor church services. Bars serving drinks only cannot be open.
One provincial supervisor in Los Angeles, with 10 million people, has expressed their support for the opening of more businesses in the country. Republican Superintendent Kathryn Barger said the state should balance public health with a “devastating social, emotional and economic consequences of this virus.”
“I support the recommendation of the Governor’s recommended guidelines for Southern California, and the reopening of outdoor eateries, personal care services, and other industries previously closed by these orders,” she said.
The province-by-province system uses different criteria to determine the risk of community transfer and applies a color code – purple, red, orange or yellow – that matches the widespread, substantial, moderate and minimal, respectively.
According to the weekend, the state’s public health website had more than 3.1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 36,790 deaths.