Bay Area Shutdown Order: Health Officers Unite, Act Decisively
BAY AREA — Millions of people in 5 Bay Area counties are subject to a new stay-at-home order that takes effect between Sunday and Tuesday. The Sunday evening order covers Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties. In Alameda County including the City of Berkeley, and San Francisco, it is scheduled to take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Monday. Marin County’s order will take effect at noon on Tuesday.
Health officers for 5 Bay Area counties and the City of Berkeley announced the regional shelter-in-place health order at a joint news conference Friday afternoon. It comes just one day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled plans for a regional stay-at-home order — the strictest since this spring— to combat a surge in cases and hospitalizations for COVID-19.
Although the governor announced that shutdowns would happen when a region has less than 15 percent intensive care unit capacity in local hospitals, local health officers decided to act before we reached that point regionwide.
Santa Clara County’s Health Officer, Dr. Sara Cody, said during the news conference that her county slipped to 14 percent ICU capacity as of Friday. Other counties are ready to take overflow cases through mutual aid.
Cody said in a prepared statement, “We understand that the closures under the State order will have a profound impact on our local businesses. However, if we act quickly, we can both save lives and reduce the amount of time these restrictions have to stay in place, allowing businesses and activities to reopen sooner.”
The stay-at-home order will last for a minimum of three weeks, at which time state public health officials will analyze ICU capacity projections for a month in advance before determining whether a county should no longer be subject to the stay-at-home order.
Even counties that currently have capacity are concerned. Contra Costa County Health Officer Dr. Christopher Farnitano said, “The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in our county has doubled in just the past couple of weeks, and we are at risk of exceeding our hospital capacity later this month if current trends continue.”
The governor estimated that the Bay Area would reach the 15 percent threshold in mid-to-late December.
California has been divided into 5 regionals for coronavirus, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Greater Sacramento, Northern California, the San Joaquin Valley, and Southern California.
The other four regions are expected to fall below 15 percent ICU capacity this week.
Though regions will enter the stay-at-home order together, counties will exit individually and return to the state's four-tiered, color-coded COVID-19 risk assessment system. Every county in the Bay Area, except for Marin, is in the purple tier, the worst.
The stay-at-home order calls for the closure of dining - both indoors and outside, hair salons and barbershops, personal care services, bars, and wineries. Retail stores can only accept customers at 20 percent capacity, and restaurants may remain open for take-out and delivery.
Children's playgrounds are again being taped-off. The reason, one health officer said, is that families tend to gather and mix at playgrounds. The order bars people from socializing with anyone outside of their own household.
“Rising hospitalization rates across the region threaten not only our community members with severe COVID-19, but anyone who may need care because of a heart attack, stroke, accident, or other critical health need,” said Alameda County Health Officer Dr. Nicholas Moss. “By acting together now we will have the greatest impact on the surge and save more lives.”
Schools that have already received permission to open may remain open. Critical infrastructure may also remain open.
“Each of us can fight the spread,” said Dr. Lisa B. Hernandez, the City of Berkeley Health Officer. “Keep your family safe by avoiding even small gatherings outside of your household and not traveling. We don’t want holiday gatherings and travel to create a spike of cases on top of the surge we’re already seeing.”
California officials do not expect to enact such dramatic restrictions again.
"This is not a permanent state. This is what many had projected — we had predicted the final surge in this pandemic," Newsom said. "There is light at the end of the tunnel."
Shipments of coronavirus vaccines have already begun and millions of Californians are expected to be vaccinated by spring.
—Written by Patch editors Bea Karnes and Courtney Teague
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated Marin County's tier in the risk assessment system.
This article originally appeared on the San Francisco Patch
