Disneyland Reopening Plan Remains Far, Far Away As Cases Diminish

Ashley Ludwig
Updated ·5 min read

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — Though Monday reporting is notoriously low, Orange County reported a mere 44 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases out of 3,689 reported tests. For the second day in a row, no new deaths were reported.

The county's cumulative coronavirus case total increased to 50,974, while the death toll stands at 1,093.

Last week, the Orange County Health Care Agency reported 42 COVID-19 fatalities. The week before saw 76 deaths reported.

In more good news, hospitalizations in the county continued to drop, decreasing from 196 on Sunday to 193 Monday, with the number of intensive care patients dropping from 58 to 56.
The county's daily case count per 100,000 people stands at 5.2, and the seven-day rate of residents testing positive for the coronavirus is 4.2%.

To move up from the state's red tier to the orange tier, the county must have a daily new case rate per 100,000 of 1 to 3.9 and a positivity rate of 2 to 4.9%.

The OCHCA reported that 741,247 COVID-19 tests have been conducted. There have been 45,396 documented recoveries.

In Orange County, the current documented case counts are as follows:

  • Aliso Viejo - 358 Total Cases

  • Anaheim - 8689 Total Cases

  • Brea - 461 Total Cases

  • Buena Park - 1449 Total Cases

  • Costa Mesa - 1764 Total Cases

  • Coto de Caza - 43 Total Cases

  • Cypress - 517 Total Cases

  • Dana Point - 261 Total Cases

  • Fountain Valley - 486 Total Cases

  • Fullerton - 2321 Total Cases

  • Garden Grove - 2782 Total Cases

  • Huntington Beach - 2293 Total Cases

  • Irvine - 1557 Total Cases

  • La Habra - 1357 Total Cases

  • La Palma - 148 Total Cases

  • Ladera Ranch - 161 Total Cases

  • Laguna Beach - 196 Total Cases

  • Laguna Hills - 299 Total Cases

  • Laguna Niguel - 405 Total Cases

  • Laguna Woods - 49 Total Cases

  • Lake Forest - 793 Total Cases

  • Los Alamitos - 159 Total Cases

  • Midway City - 120 Total Cases

  • Mission Viejo - 775 Total Cases

  • Newport Beach - 1093 Total Cases

  • Orange - 2323 Total Cases

  • Placentia - 888 Total Cases

  • Rancho Mission Viejo - 60 Total Cases

  • Rancho Santa Margarita - 328 Total Cases

  • Rossmoor - 62 Total Cases

  • San Clemente - 474 Total Cases

  • San Juan Capistrano - 463 Total Cases

  • Santa Ana - 9790 Total Cases

  • Seal Beach - 265 Total Cases

  • Silverado - 42 Total Cases

  • Stanton - 628 Total Cases

  • Trabuco Canyon - 190 Total Cases

  • Tustin - 1194 Total Cases

  • Villa Park - 50 Total Cases

  • Westminster - 963 Total Cases

  • Yorba Linda - 663 Total Cases

Monday marked six months since Disneyland Resort announced they would shut down amid the coronavirus pandemic. As a county grappled with rapidly rising cases, fatalities, and the world drew in, now the city is seeing a ray of hope.

The city has asked Gov. Gavin Newsom's office for a reopening plan and has yet to receive those instructions from the Governor's office.

Anaheim's coronavirus case counts skyrocketed in the early days as businesses and theme parks shuttered. To date, they have maintained the second-highest positive counts for coronavirus in the county, second only to Santa Ana.

The state shutdown order of March 14 also affected the Anaheim Convention Center, the Honda Center and Angel Stadium.

Anaheim officials need "guidance on theme parks to reopen safely and responsibly when it is right," city spokesman Mike Lyster said. "We actually need a roadmap for recovery."

The need to plan and prepare is more crucial now that case rates in the county and in hotspots like Anaheim are declining, Lyster said.

"We're seeing cases come down significantly in Anaheim, even in our most hardest-hit neighborhoods," he said.

The county's outreach to neighborhoods with the highest coronavirus cases has made a difference, Lyster said. City officials expect the county to meet the state's orange tier standards as of Tuesday, he said.

"We believe now is not the time to necessarily open the theme parks, but to talk about the economic recovery road map," Lyster said.

The city's unemployment rate has reached 15%, which is higher than the peak of 12% during the Great Recession a decade ago.

"That's 26,000 people in our city. That's a significant amount of people dislocated from their jobs," Lyster said, noting that Anaheim "is looking at a $100 million deficit."

Compounding matters is many of the unemployed have had trouble getting unemployment benefits, Lyster said

A planned reopening in mid-July was scrapped because of outbreaks stemming from the Fourth of July. Lyster said city officials believe that Disney's management of the reopening of its Downtown Disney businesses shows it can responsibly reopen with social distancing and enforcement of face coverings.

"It really is a model to go forward containing coronavirus and also allowing people to get back to work," Lyster said. "What's frustrating is beaches, zoos and parts of Sea World (in San Diego) are open. These are attractions that can draw tens of thousands of people. We want to see the same opportunity for theme parks."

Orange County was upgraded from the purple to the red tier in California's coronavirus monitoring system last week. The move allowed for churches, theaters and other businesses to resume indoor operations, but with strict limits on capacity and other health measures in place.

Theaters, restaurants and churches are restricted to 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is less. Museums, zoos and aquariums also were allowed to reopen indoor activities at 25% capacity. Shopping centers were given the green light to expand from 25% capacity to half-capacity under the red tier, while gyms were allowed to reopen at 10% capacity.

City News Service, Patch Editor Ashley Ludwig contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on the Orange County Patch