Governor Gavin Newsom is loosening the guidelines required for counties to move deeper into phase two of the state's reopening plan.
In his regular weekday news conference, the Governor has removed what many considered to be the strictest of the state's requirements for counties to surpass the safer-at-home order. Now, instead of requiring counties to have no deaths for 14 days, counties will be evaluated on its caseload, including no more than a 5% increase in hospitalizations in seven days, no more than 8% rate in new cases and at least 15 contact tracers for every 100,000 residents.
"Well, what’s changed in the last few weeks is testing has substantially increased, the amount of PPE has substantially increased, the number of hospitalizations has decreased, the number of ICU hospitalizations has decreased, our capacity to meet surge has been, I think, advanced," Newsom said.
The state estimates that 53 of California's 58 counties will be able to meet these new metrics. This could mean that as counties choose to relax their rules at a quicker pace than the state, salons and barber shops could start offering haircuts, retail could allow in-store shopping and houses of worship may resume some in-person services within a matter of weeks, Newsom said.
And Newsom said that live sports could resume in the state as soon as June, although sporting events will not have fans in the audience for some time.
“This is an important period of time," he said. "We’re moving into an important few weeks ahead of us, and we’re going to start seeing a lot more activity. Let’s just make sure we do it thoughtfully and very, very strategically.”
The announcement comes just a couple hours after Bay Area counties announced an easing of shelter-in-place restrictions on some curbside retail, manufacturing and warehouses, with several just beginning to move into phase two. Officials in the Bay Area, which has been one of the state's hotspots, have consistently been slower to reopen than other parts of the state.
Reporting contributed by Doug Sovern. Written by Jessica Yi.
