Sonoma County Adopts Stay-Home Order Alongside Bay Area Counties

Maggie Fusek
Updated ·6 min read

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Sonoma County announced it will join seven other Bay Area counties and cities by adopting a stay-at-home public health order that will go into effect at the end of the day Friday.

The decision to preemptively adopt the California Department of Public Health's statewide order for regions falling below 15-percent availability of intensive care units was made because of rising coronavirus case numbers and hospitalizations, officials with Sonoma County said late Thursday afternoon in a news release.

Under the order that becomes effective in Sonoma County at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 12, residents must stay at home except to go to work, go shopping or do other essential activities, such as medical appointments, which are allowed under the statewide "Regional Shelter-In-Place Order."

All sectors other than retail and essential operations in Sonoma County must close.

Outdoor recreation is allowed.

The new restrictions will remain in place in Sonoma County through the Christmas and New Year's holidays, until 11:59 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021.

"Although Sonoma County has fared better until now than other parts of the state in terms of demand on our hospitals, we have been seeing an alarming increase in cases and hospitalizations in recent days, and this is putting increased strain on our medical resources," said Dr. Sundari Mase, Sonoma County’s Health Officer. "Given that, we feel we have no choice but to join the other Bay Area counties in preemptively adopting the governor’s Stay-Home order, which is already in effect for most of the state. We have to take action now."

Sonoma County cases have doubled in recent days and are now averaging nearly 25 cases per 100,000 with a 14-day average of 343 cases per 100,000, Mase said. This is higher than at any point since the pandemic began. In addition, the county’s positivity rate is now up to 6.6 percent, and hospitalizations are now close to being the highest that they have ever been, Mase said.

"We also are seeing a wider geographic spread of infection," Mase said.

The Bay Area is seen as one of five regions under California's newest effort to curtail the spread of the coronavirus. The counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, San Francisco and Santa Clara, as well as the city of Berkeley, have already implemented the state's stay-home order.

Within the last day in Sonoma County, two coronavirus-related deaths and 191 new cases were reported, bringing the county's cumulative total Thursday to 13,912 cases and 162 deaths.

Much of these increases are due to the surge in cases spreading across the nation, as well as large gatherings that took place locally including over the Halloween and Thanksgiving holidays, she said.

Under the Sonoma County order, retail operations are allowed to continue at 20 percent capacity, or 35 percent capacity for stand-alone grocery stores.

Schools that have received waivers are allowed to continue operation.

Places of worship are still permitted to hold outdoor services.

Restaurants can offer takeout, pickup, or delivery.

Hotels, vacation rentals and other lodging are only allowed to offer accommodations for those coming to the area for essential work or for COVID-19 mitigation and containment measures.

But the following operations will be required to cease both indoor and outdoor services: ·

  • Hair salons and barbershops

  • Personal care services

  • Movie theaters (except for drive-in theaters) \

  • Wineries, bars, breweries and distilleries (except for operations related to production, manufacturing, distribution and retail sales for off-site consumption)

  • Family entertainment centers

  • Museums, zoos, and aquariums

  • Live audience sports

  • Amusement parks

Outdoor activities are allowed but only for the purpose of facilitating physically distanced personal health and wellness through outdoor exercise.

Outdoor gym operations are allowed, but no indoor activities are permitted. No food, drink or alcohol sales are allowed as part of outdoor gym operations.

Overnight stays at campgrounds are not permitted.

Playgrounds can remain open to facilitate physically distanced personal health and wellness through outdoor exercise.

The Sonoma County order comes a week after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the adoption of a stay-home order for all regions of the state where ICU bed availability dropped below 15 percent.

The current ICU capacity in Sonoma County was not available at the time of publication. (The county website's Hospital Capacity Dashboard was down for maintenance as of 5 p.m. Thursday.) However, the county's new stay-home order does state that of 65 COVID-19 patients hospitalized Wednesday in Sonoma County, 11 were in intensive care units (ICUs), and only 10 staffed ICU beds were available in the county for all patients, leaving Sonoma County with 18.2 percent available ICU capacity.

The ICU capacity for the Bay Area has declined from 25.7 percent at the start of the week to 17.8 percent Thursday.

The Stay-Home order is already in effect in two of the regions: Southern California and San Joaquin Valley.

The order will take effect for the Greater Sacramento region, which now has an ICU capacity of 13.3 percent, at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

This order comes in response to soaring statewide increases in cases. California cases have increased from about 6,000 per day to nearly 30,000 per day in the past 30 days. The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has reached an all-time high of 12,477 people, and projections from the state show that Intensive Care Units will be severely impacted if cases continue to climb.

"This is a hard time of year, and we are asking a lot from our residents who have already sacrificed so much during the last nine months. We are missing precious moments with our loved ones, businesses are struggling, and many of our residents are losing necessary income," said Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin, who is chair of the Board of Supervisors. "For precisely these reasons, it is imperative that we act together now to slow the spread, because the faster we stop this surge the sooner we can continue safely reopening."

The health order is available on the Sonoma County website.

"The County urges residents to plan on celebrating the holidays with their households in accordance with the Stay-at-Home Order and not to rely on the availability of a vaccine during December," Sonoma County Spokesman Paul Gullixson said. "Although a COVID-19 vaccine is expected to become available in December, it will have a limited release and not be widely available until 2021."

Gullixson said the county is committed to offering resources to residents during this time. Residents who need support and information can visit Socoemergency.org/coronavirus, and businesses can find resources and guidance on Socolaunch.org, he said.

This article originally appeared on the Petaluma Patch