Your guide to COVID restrictions in the Sacramento region: Restaurants, schools, sports

Rates of coronavirus infection have been improving for weeks throughout California and within the capital region, bringing counties closer to loosened business and activity restrictions and schools potentially closer to reopening campuses.

Those decisions come at both the state level from the California Department of Public Health, which has for the past 11 months issued a plethora of mandates and guidelines on COVID-19 restrictions as infection rates rise and fall; and at the local government level, where counties can institute stricter guidelines than the state.

The state has a four-tier economic opening framework, guidelines for opening K-12 schools and, as of last week, a plan for contact youth sports to resume.

Those regulations overlap, intersect and constantly evolve, an undoubted source of confusion as the pandemic approaches a full year of upending life in California.

Here is an update on where COVID-19 restrictions stand entering this week in the four-county Sacramento area: Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer and Yolo counties.

Red tier: Indoor dining, gyms, movie theaters and more

What are the rules?

There are four tiers in California’s reopening framework. From most to least restrictive, they are: purple, red, orange and yellow.

There are three criteria that dictate tier assignments: case rate (per 100,000 residents), test positivity rate and a health equity metric that looks at test positivity for socioeconomically disadvantaged census tracts. The third metric is considered for counties with more than 106,000 residents, meaning it applies to all four in the capital region.

To improve from the purple tier to the red tier, a county must meet all applicable requirements for two consecutive weeks: fewer than 7 daily cases per 100,000, an overall positivity rate below 8% and, for counties above the population threshold, a positivity rate below 8% in the bottom quartile of census tracts as defined using the California Healthy Places Index.

CDPH updates the tier list weekly on Tuesdays. As of last week, all but six counties making up only 0.2% of California’s population were in the purple tier. But many counties are also showing rapid declines in their infection metrics from the winter surge, which saw daily case rates in some areas explode to more than 100 per 100,000.

The primary restrictions loosened for a county that moves from the purple to red tier are that restaurants may reopen for indoor dining, along with indoor movie theaters, museums, zoos and aquariums, all at 25% of normal capacity. Gyms and fitness centers may reopen indoors at 10% of normal capacity.

Retail stores and shopping centers may also double from 25% of normal capacity in the purple tier to 50% in the red tier.

Where does the Sacramento area stand?

Yolo County in the Feb. 16 update from CDPH recorded its first of two necessary weeks meeting red tier criteria, with a test positivity rate of 1.8%, 6.6 daily cases per 100,000 and 5.7% test positivity in the health equity quartile.

If Yolo meets all three again in this Tuesday’s update, the state will promote the county to the red tier.

Placer County was next closest: 4.8% test positivity, 12.7 cases per 100,000 and 6.6% for the equity metric.

For El Dorado County: 5.4% test positivity, 14.7 cases per 100,000 and 7% for equity.

And for Sacramento County: 6% test positivity, 18.7 cases per 100,000 and 9.2% for equity.

School campus reopenings

What are the rules?

There is large uncertainty regarding when public K-12 schools will reopen for on-campus learning throughout California. Some large public school districts have plans to reopen, but could still be several weeks away from welcoming students back to campus.

Formally, the most up-to-date CDPH guidelines say schools cannot reopen for grades seven through 12 until their county has been in the red tier or better for at least five consecutive days. For kindergarten through sixth grade, schools may reopen in counties where the case rate has been below 25 per 100,000 for five consecutive days.

Schools must also have submitted a reopening plan to the state before resuming on-campus instruction.

As of last week’s update, all but 11 counties — most of them in the San Joaquin Valley or Southern California — had case rates below 25 per 100,000. Only five — Yolo, Plumas, Trinity, Mariposa and Sierra counties — were below 7 per 100,000.

In practice, districts are reopening on varying timelines, and teachers unions have largely resisted a return to in-person learning until educators have wide access to vaccines.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that California starting March 1 will set aside 10% of vaccine first doses for teachers and child care workers.

Where does the Sacramento area stand?

Sacramento, El Dorado, Yolo and Placer have all seen their case rates drop below 25 per 100,000.

Several school districts are open in the four-county Sacramento area, while others are still planning a return that could take until April.

Some large districts in Placer and El Dorado counties – including Rocklin Unified, Roseville Joint Unified High and Placerville Union – opened in-person or hybrid schedules last fall, when the counties were in the looser red and orange tiers. State guidelines haven’t required schools to close campus and return to distance learning upon demotion to the purple tier.

Schools are largely closed in Sacramento and Yolo counties. Two notable district exceptions are Folsom Cordova Unified, which reopened last autumn during a brief window in which Sacramento County had escaped the purple tier; and Natomas Unified, which on Feb. 10 decided to return this Tuesday for transitional kindergarten through sixth grade, in line with state and local guidelines.

Sacramento County recently opened vaccination appointments and clinics to teachers, but supply remains limited.

Sacramento City Unified has set April 8 as a goal to return pre-kindergarten through third grade, April 15 as the goal for fourth through sixth grades, and May 6 for grades seven through 12 if Sacramento County is in the red tier.

A message on the Yolo County Office of Education website says schools “will soon be open for modified in-class instruction.” One of the county’s largest districts, Davis Joint Unified, on its website says it will share updates in early March on hybrid learning.

With Yolo’s case rate at 6.6 per 100,000 as of last week, the county is solidly beneath the threshold of 25 for elementary schools, but only 0.4 beneath the middle and high school cutoff of seven per 100,000. Decisions for grades seven through 12 will therefore likely hinge on where the case rate stands in this Tuesday’s update, and perhaps next week’s update as well if this week’s rate remains borderline.

California youth sports

What are the rules?

State health officials and the Newsom administration last week announced that youth sports can resume play beginning contact sports this coming Friday, under certain conditions that vary by sport, in counties with fewer than 14 daily cases per 100,000.

CDPH guidelines group youth sports as follows:

Outdoor low-contact sports (golf, cross country, etc.) are permitted in all tiers.

Outdoor “moderate-contact” sports (baseball, field hockey, etc.) can be played in the red tier or looser.

Outdoor “high-contact” sports (basketball, football, soccer, rugby, etc.) and indoor low-contact sports (swimming, track and field, etc.) are permitted in the orange tier or better.

Indoor moderate- and high-contact sports can only be played in yellow-tier counties.

However, in a key exception, the state says that outdoor high-contact sports can be played in purple-tier and red-tier counties with a case rate below 14 per 100,000, with informed consent and strict testing protocols for some sports, including football.

Where does the Sacramento area stand?

Placer and Yolo counties each had case rates below 14 last week. If they do not rise back above that threshold in Tuesday’s update, moderate-contact youth sports will be clear for play when the new guidelines kick in this coming Friday.

El Dorado County came in at just over 14 last week, at 14.7. If recent weeks’ trends of improvement continue as expected, El Dorado will also be clear to play by Friday.

Sacramento County is a bigger question mark. The county last week had a reported case rate of 18.7 per 100,000. The previous week, it had been 24.8. But declines tend to slow down as the raw totals approach lower rates.

In other words, it is difficult to predict whether the drop from 18.7 to 14 or lower will happen on Tuesday.

This week’s update from CDPH will survey data from the week ending Feb. 13. Sacramento County’s local health office on its own data dashboard reported a case rate of 15 per 100,000 that week, but the state and the county use slightly different methods to calculate that metric.