New Sonoma County Health Order Eases Restrictions: What To Know

SONOMA COUNTY, CA – A new shelter-in-place order was issued Friday by Sonoma County Public Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase that eases restrictions on a number of important employment areas, including construction, landscaping services, nurseries, and car and bicycle sales.

In a news release late Friday afternoon, county officials said residents' compliance with Sonoma County's previous health orders made a significant interruption in community transmission of the coronavirus.

"Sheltering-in-Place has worked to save lives and maintain health care system capacity," county officials said.

"We have made important progress in our fight against the virus," Mase said. "Opening the County up further is contingent upon our ability to keep up our efforts and reach critical milestones."

The total number of coronavirus cases in the county was 244 as of Thursday night — an increase of 13 from Wednesday. The total number of cases in the Central County area, which includes Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park and Cotati, was 145 as of Thursday night; South County, which includes Penngrove and Petaluma, has had 35 cases; in East County, which encompasses Kenwood, Glen Ellen and Sonoma, there have been 18 cases; there have been 21 cases in North County, which includes Windsor, Healdsburg and communities north to Cloverdale; 8 cases have been confirmed in the West County area of Sebastopol and Guerneville; and in 8 cases, the place of residence was under investigation.

"Our latest data shows staying at home prevented community spread of the virus," Mase said. "It is important that we now work to scale up testing and contact tracing to limit the spread of COVID-19 and keep people safe."

Like California Gov. Gavin Newsom's newest order, this Sonoma County order takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, and does not have a specific end date — so that the county can modify the order as necessary, by either loosening or tightening restrictions, as dictated by changes in coronavirus data and state orders.

"We all are eager to open up more businesses," Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chair Susan Gorin said about the new order. "To be successful we must be deliberate in how we open up our economy, while working to protect the safety of everyone involved. This involves extensive planning, which we have begun doing with our local businesses."

Construction: What's Allowed, What's Not Allowed

The new Sonoma County health order effective Monday, May 4, eases restrictions on construction businesses, allowing all new construction, and all construction work on unoccupied structures. For occupied structures, exterior work is allowed, but interior work is only permitted if necessary for the safety, sanitation, and habitability of the structure.

Under the order, a construction business must maintain strict compliance with construction site-specific field safety requirements. Examples of construction site-specific requirements include daily health screening for arriving staff, establishing cleaning and decontamination protocols, and designation of a safety officer.

Real Estate And Other Businesses

The order also eases restrictions on real estate/rental viewing if there is strict compliance with sector specific social distancing and hygiene requirements.

Furthermore, the order eases restrictions for the following essential outdoor businesses where transmission risk is lower, including: arborists, landscaping, gardening, pool maintenance, plant nurseries, and environmental site remediation services.

The order also clarifies that florists are considered essential agriculture and that their retail sales can occur only via curbside, delivery or shipping.

Golf

Additionally, golfing is allowed as a recreational outdoor activity, and players, golf courses and golf driving ranges are subject to strict golf safety requirements; owners and operators must provide security or patrolling, and will be responsible for ensuring golfers comply with these requirements.

Car Dealerships

Car dealerships and bicycle shops can operate for retail sales, as long as maintain the required social distancing protocols for staff and customers.

The order provision regarding minimum basic operations allowed for nonessential businesses remains unchanged. Those nonessential businesses may continue to sell existing inventory for delivery or shipping, but not curbside pickup.

Religious Gatherings

Lastly, the order addresses faith-based services organizations, allowing them to offer food, shelter, and social services, and other necessities of life for economically disadvantaged or otherwise needy individuals, and to provide counseling and host religious services through virtual streaming or similar technology.

The order states that the county health officer, Dr. Mase, does not expect to permit private or public mass gatherings in the immediate future and that Mase is to continue assessing whether mass gatherings are appropriate based upon infection rate and data related to the state’s critical reopening indicators.

The county says the order represents an important step along the road to recovery while it closely follows the data and the success of mitigation strategies to make adjustments as needed.

County Works Toward Full Reopening

To move the county further down the road to recovery, Mase is also working with the County Economic Development Board — or EDB — and industry leaders to develop specific COVID-19 mitigation measures to facilitate reopenings for all other businesses.

Providing mitigation measure guidance to the community, including the ability for businesses to implement them, is a component to move to phase two of the Governor’s Resilience Roadmap issued Tuesday, according to the county's news release.

"We are optimistic that the Governor is looking at relaxing some of the restrictions that have closed businesses these past six weeks," said EDB Executive Director Sheba Person-Whitley. "We are in the process of assembling a Reopening Task Force in partnership with local chambers, industry groups, and economic development partners so businesses may come together and develop industry-specific COVID-19 mitigation solutions that will allow them to open as soon as they are allowed. We understand there is an urgent need for this, and are preparing an unprecedented effort to complete this task together over the next week."

The complete, most recent Sonoma County Shelter-In-Place Order is posted at Socoemergency.org. Community members may also call 211 for information, or text their ZIP code to 898-211 in order to communicate via text message with a 211 operator.

The full 24-page order is also embedded below in English and in Spanish.

Sonoma County Shelter-In-Place Public Health Order Effective 12:01 a.m. Monday, May 4:

En Espanol: Sonoma County Shelter-In-Place Public Health Order Effective 12:01 a.m. May 4:

This article originally appeared on the Petaluma Patch