Los Angeles' stay-at-home order is likely to last in some form until the end of July
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Los Angeles County will most likely remain under some form of stay-at-home order for the next three months, several local outlets reported.
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said "with all certainty" that the county will remain under the orders till the end of July.
Other health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci have also said that reopening too early could cause more avoidable deaths.
While the rest of California began a phased reopening last week, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said on Tuesday that "with all certainty" the county's state at home order will remain in place for three more months, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"Our hope is that by using the data, we'd be able to slowly lift restrictions over the next three months," Ferrer said during a Board of Directors meeting.
According to KABC-TV, Ferrer said the restrictions would continue unless there was a "dramatic change to the virus and tools at hand."
There has been no official order yet; current stay-at-home orders are set to end on May 15.
Adding more context Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN's Anderson Cooper, "When our county health officer Dr. Ferrer merely said that an order would stay in place for at least three more months, that doesn't mean the order stays in place exactly as it is today."
He said Angelenos should "not freak out" at the news and that there will be a gradual easing of restrictions. He stressed the need for more testing and a treatment for COVID-19.
Some retail shops are open for curbside pickup, and several beaches are opening for limited recreational activities but not sunbathing on May 14.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Ferrer's comments come after Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading infectious disease expert and member of the coronavirus task force, told Congress that states opening too quickly would trigger an outbreak.
Fauci has stressed that states pushing to reopen with-out seeing a decline in cases, and without having the capacity to test as well as have contact tracing would cause "needless suffering and death," Business Insider previously reported.
"If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to: 'Open America Again,' then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country," Fauci wrote in an email to The New York Times. "This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal."
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