Santa Clara and San Mateo counties returned to the state's most restrictive COVID-19 level, the "purple" tier, after California health officials lifted statewide regional stay-at-home orders on Monday.
The return to the purple tier under California's Blueprint for a Safer Economy was expected. It is the same level that will be maintained in all counties statewide except for four in the northernmost part of the state.
Under the purple tier, outdoor dining, personal care services and professional, collegiate, adult and youth sports may resume with modifications. Mandatory travel restrictions, which require a 10-day quarantine for most persons who return to Santa Clara County after traveling farther than 150 miles, will stay in effect, Santa Clara County Counsel James Williams said during a press conference on Monday afternoon.
Businesses and individuals must follow both the state and county orders, and where there is a conflict between the two, the stricter rules must be followed.
"Santa Clara County continues to experience very high rates of COVID-19 transmission. Our collective actions to date have saved lives and helped protect our health care system from collapse. I encourage all residents to remain vigilant, wear a mask anytime you leave your home, maintain a distance of at least 6 feet from anyone outside your household, and get vaccinated when it is your turn," county Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said in a press release issued prior to Williams' appearance.
The county is keeping the travel restriction order in place due to the high infection rate in other parts of the state, particularly in southern California, where three variants of the coronavirus that are spreading throughout the state have been found. The travel restrictions also appear to have reduced the amount of travel, which is one of the main ways the virus has spread, Williams said.
"We are still nowhere yet out of the woods," Williams said, noting the county still has high hospital rates.
Williams said that the most significant impacts of returning to the purple tier will be on restaurants, which can now resume outdoor dining. Personal care services, such as nail and hair salons, can have indoor and outdoor clients. Outdoor family entertainment centers and outdoor card rooms also can reopen, and gatherings of up to three households can resume outdoors only. Places of worship also can resume outdoor services.
The county's local directives, which predate the state's regional stay-at-home order, are still in effect. Noncontact youth sports can resume if they are outdoors, but contact sports are still prohibited. The San Jose Sharks can resume play at SAP Center provided they adhere to regulations, Williams said.
San Mateo County health officials said in a press release on Monday afternoon that effective immediately, outdoor dining and personal services may resume with required modifications. The county is not imposing additional local restrictions and remains in alignment with the state.
"This is encouraging news, but we must caution the public that COVID-19 is still very much widespread across the nation as nearly 420,000 Americans have died from the virus in less than a year," San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President David Canepa said.
"That being said, I’m ready to enjoy a meal outdoors again and am certainly in need of a visit to the barber. This is a huge sigh of relief for our struggling small businesses, but we've got a ways to go still before life returns to normal. Science and data tell us that wearing our masks stops the spread. So I will repeat once again, wear your damn masks," he said in the statement.
More information on what can reopen in Santa Clara County can be found here. Additional details on what's permitted to resume in San Mateo County can be found here.
Find comprehensive coverage on the Midpeninsula's response to the new coronavirus by Palo Alto Online, the Mountain View Voice and the Almanac here.
Comments
Registered user
Leland Manor/Garland Drive
on Jan 25, 2021 at 6:18 pm
Registered user
on Jan 25, 2021 at 6:18 pm
Its the COVID carousel. One week you can get a haircut, the next week you use a Flowbee. One week you are eating in the middle of the street under a semi-effectual heat-lamp, the next you are overpaying for DoorDash. Rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, the COVID fundamentals haven't improved. Infection rates and ICU occupancy rates remain far higher than last Spring's "shelter-in-place" panic when everyone freaked out as folks seemed to confuse COVID with cholera and toilet paper became more valuable than gold. Promised vaccines are here (or are they?) amid chaos, confusion and waste (spoiled doses) as our federal, State and local governments continue to flounder around aimlessly uncoordinated amid a whorl of conflicting statistics, politics and incompetence. There is no solid ground under any of this. No one, not much abused Dr. Fauci, "pass the foie gras" Gavin, nor "I will open the schools" Biden controls any of this or has an effective, workable plan. Meanwhile, retail businesses are jerked around and collapsing, school children are falling tragically behind, some people are dying (but not enough to scare us silly) and everyone is confused behind their masks and six foot social distancing (because everyone knows at 5 feet you will catch it). In a leadership vacuum, the virus is going to do what the virus is going to do and, eventually, so are people. Someone may find this funny some day. I hope we all live to see it.
Registered user
Ventura
on Jan 25, 2021 at 7:59 pm
Registered user
on Jan 25, 2021 at 7:59 pm
Yes, it's a "covid carousel." Lockdowns and inconsistent panic and politics-driven policy has made a very a bad situation -- the virus -- worse, not better.
Almost a year in and people still haven't figured out that you can't stop the march of the virus by hiding from it. Locking down hasn't made people's lives safer and better, it has made them *more* perilous and worse overall than if we had adopted a realistic policy of management.
We have become so overconfident in our technology that people think we can cure anything or prevent death. This has fed wishful thinking. Politicians exploit this overconfidence, and people's panic, to showboat, pretending that they are "doing something about it."
At this point it will take 10 years to recover from the lockdown-induced damage, and that's on top of the tragedy of the virus body count.
Registered user
Palo Alto High School
on Jan 26, 2021 at 10:52 am
Registered user
on Jan 26, 2021 at 10:52 am
I am grateful for the vigilance being taken. We do have ups and downs and I wish we were much more rigid like other countries so we could have it safer here now. I do hope people continue to read the effects of getting covid, even mild cases. It can be lifelong and vigilance is required to remain safe and healthy. Please wear masks, keep social distancing, have your small pod of people, and wait the few months till we all have the vaccine. We are so close and we have endured almost a year of this... stay strong, stay healthy, and stay safe.
Registered user
Downtown North
on Jan 26, 2021 at 1:05 pm
Registered user
on Jan 26, 2021 at 1:05 pm
What cmarg said.
Registered user
Old Palo Alto
on Jan 26, 2021 at 1:45 pm
Registered user
on Jan 26, 2021 at 1:45 pm
It is unbelievable to me that Sarah Cody thinks a 150 mile travel quarantine for Santa Clara residents is justifiable on the basis of Southern CA covid cases. There was no such concern let alone public service notices regarding the massive Hepatitis outbreak in San Diego. There is nothing to prevent me from traveling to the remote places abroad where the WHO is trying to stamp out smallpox for good. I could have easily traveled to places where SARS 1, MERS and Ebola were raging in their time. If we want to know whether travelers are infectious with anything, we need to remove all barriers that currently prevent people from testing themselves. We do not need to require nurses and doctors to administer tests. If college students all across the country can test themselves for covid then residents of Santa Clara county can surely do the same. Sarah Cody’s approach to covid has certainly not evolved much over the last year. I believe its well past time to reverse AB 262 which gave county health officers this power in the first place (and was curiously passed in October 2019). I would sure like to know more about who knew what about the forthcoming health risks to all of California back then. It is written that the San Diego Hepatitis crises was the basis for AB 262 but I dont buy that one bit.