The City of Oakland is asking residents to give Lake Merritt and other parks some space, as COVID-19 cases continue to surge and are increasingly tied to social gatherings.
In May, only 3% of coronavirus cases were attributed to parties and social gatherings. Now, that number has jumped to 40%, said Oakland City Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas.
“We want people to understand that if you come to the lake and you're not wearing a mask, you’re not staying 6 ft. apart, you are potentially risking your health and the health of people around you,” Bas told KCBS Radio.
Many lake visitors have not been adhering to the advised coronavirus precautions on recent weekend trips.
Joe DeVries of the City Administrator's Office said a big part of the problem are food trucks and other vendors.
“With the vendors, we’ve taken a light touch to begin with, and that didn’t work,” DeVries said. “We saw this radical expansion of vending going on, a lot of it – all of it really – illegal.”
Officials said that on Saturday and Sunday, vendors will be getting warnings, and next weekend they could be fined.
