Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Tuesday, Jan. 26, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.
On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the lifting of all regional stay-at-home orders in California, clearing the way for a wider reopening in many regions, including Los Angeles County.
[Read the story: “Newsom cancels California’s COVID-19 stay-at-home orders” in the Los Angeles Times]
The governor’s announcement was made amid promising signs that the worst wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is starting to recede, though the state is “not out of the woods” yet, as Newsom reminded Californians on Monday.
[See also: “The risk of reopening California as new strains spread, vaccine rollout slows” in the Los Angeles Times]
The sudden announcement came as a shock to much of the state, and the governor’s team appeared to have been operating on a need-to-know basis in the hours immediately preceding it. Those in the know included leaders of California’s powerful restaurant lobby, which sent an email to its members Sunday night informing them of the impending announcement.
But that circle of trust did not appear to extend to the mayor of the state’s largest city. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Monday morning that he learned of the decision “as quickly and as suddenly as the public.”
What the new rules mean
With the regional stay-at-home order lifted, the state is reverting to the four-tiered, color-coded system Newsom introduced in August. That system assigns local risk levels based on case numbers and rates of positive test results for coronavirus infections.
As of Monday, all but four counties in the state fell under the state’s most-restrictive tier, purple. But the purple rules are substantially looser than the stay-at-home order was.
With necessary modifications, restaurants can reopen for outdoor dining, nail and hair salons can reopen indoors, and certain youth sports competitions can resume.
The state rules serve as a baseline; while local jurisdictions can be stricter, they cannot be more lenient. According to Newsom, the tiers will be reassessed Tuesday, meaning some counties may move into less restrictive tiers.
In Los Angeles County — where an outdoor dining ban that predated the state stay-at-home order has been hotly contested — officials clarified that outdoor dining would resume Friday.
[Read the story: “L.A. County to resume outdoor dining after COVID stay-at-home order is canceled” in the Los Angeles Times]
The decision comes as the number of new daily cases and hospitalizations in L.A. County continue to decline, even as deaths — a lagging indicator — remain near their peak. An emergency order was issued last week to temporarily suspend air-quality limits on cremations in order to deal with the backlog of dead bodies in the county. That order remains in effect.
But even though the average number of new daily cases in the county has significantly declined since a December peak, the figures remain extremely high — far higher than they were in November, when the county’s outdoor dining ban was first triggered.
[Read more: “From restaurants to hair salons, What you need to know as L.A. County lifts stay-at-home COVID-19 rules” in the Los Angeles Times]
L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer urged caution as people move forward with new activities, stressing that if the situation starts deteriorating again, “we’ll be in the horrible position of once again needing to backtrack.”
How was the decision made?
The decisions are based on projected ICU bed availability.
“We project forward, over a four-week period,” Newsom explained, with an order being lifted when the state’s models show that a region’s projected ICU capacity will be at or above 15% in a month’s time. The models the state uses to make its projections are not shared with the public. But Newsom said the projections show all five of the state’s regions having ICU capacity well over 15% a month from now.
And now, here’s what’s happening across California:
In a significant reshuffling of eligibility guidelines, California officials will shift who is prioritized in the next round of COVID-19 vaccinations to focus on age rather than on high-risk occupations. The modifications announced Monday don’t change the current priority list, which focuses on healthcare workers and residents 65 or older before expanding to teachers, farmworkers and first responders.
But there will be a shift in who gets the vaccine after them. Under the new plan, the next priority would be people under 65. No details about the criteria were released Monday, but it could end up focusing first on those over 50. Los Angeles Times
California would extend eviction protections to June 30 under a new proposal. Newsom and state legislative leaders have agreed to a proposal to extend through June protections against evictions for California tenants financially harmed by the pandemic, an effort that would head off what some warn could be a housing crisis in the state, officials said Monday. The proposed legislation would also create a rent subsidy program using up to $2.6 billion in federal rental relief dollars. Current state protections against eviction expire Jan. 31. Los Angeles Times
A powerful atmospheric river storm barreling toward the Bay Area and Central Coast is expected to drench the region starting Tuesday night, with more rain than earlier anticipated. The storm raises the risk of potentially deadly mudslides in the days ahead, particularly in areas where steep slopes burned last year. Evacuation orders have been issued for several thousand people in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the CZU Lightning Complex Fire burned 86,509 acres last August. Mercury News
No comments:
Post a Comment