New California coronavirus rules will let more counties reopen, Gavin Newsom says

California is loosening its criteria for counties that want to reopen faster than the rest of the state.

Counties will have to demonstrate that their hospitalization rates are stable and their rate of positive cases are low, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday. They will no longer have to meet the requirement that they have no deaths in the last 14 days.

“We are empowering our local health directors and county officials that understand their local communities and conditions better than any of us,” Newsom said during a press conference at a restaurant in Napa. “This is a dynamic period that we’re in.”

Now, counties that want to speed up their reopening can’t have more than a 5 percent increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the last seven days on average. For smaller counties where a single new hospitalized patient could cause a significant percentage jump, they will have to show that they had fewer than 20 COVID-19 patients hospitalized on any day in the past 14 days.

Counties would also need to show that they had no more than 25 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 14 days, or a positive test rate of less than 8 percent. They will still need to demonstrate that they have adequate testing and contact tracing capacity to monitor spread of the virus in their communities and that hospitals and nursing homes can handle new outbreaks.

Newsom said the new criteria could enable 53 of the state’s 58 counties to more quickly reopen businesses without conflicting with the stay-at-home order he issued on March 19 to slow the spread of the outbreak. He did not say which five counties did not meet the loosened criteria.

So far, the state has allowed 24 mostly smaller counties to begin reopening, he said.

California since May 8 has allowed retail stores to reopen for curbside pickup. Some restaurants in counties that have been cleared to reopen more quickly have begun offering in-house dining service.

Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham, R-Templeton, called Newsom’s announcement “a major victory for the people of the Central Coast.”

His district, which includes San Luis Obispo County, has been pushing to reopen more quickly since April.

“It was past time to give counties the ability to start a phased reopening under the direction and guidance of their own local public health officials,” he wrote in a statement. “Now we can begin to rebuild our lives and our communities under our own control.”

Newsom said he is preparing to announce statewide orders in coming weeks that will allow in-store retail shopping, barbers and salons to open and professional sporting events without spectators.

Even under the loosened criteria, we’re still a few weeks away from getting haircuts at salons and filling pews at churches and other places of worship, Newsom said.

This story was originally published May 18, 2020 at 12:28 PM with the headline "New California coronavirus rules will let more counties reopen, Gavin Newsom says."