California updated county level assignments on Tuesday afternoon, with Alameda, Santa Cruz and Solano counties advancing from the strictest purple level to the mildest red level, according to the state’s online panel that tracks the pandemic. This allows the three counties to reopen new activities and business sectors, including in-house restaurants with 25% capacity, starting on Wednesday.
In the Bay Area, all counties are in red, except Contra Costa and Sonoma, which remain in purple.
Here is a summary of what the state allows to reopen in the red layer:
-Internal restaurants (maximum capacity of 25% or 100 people, whichever is less)
– All retail in-house (max. 50% of capacity)
– Shopping centers, exchange points in closed environments (max. 50% of capacity, closed common areas, food courts with reduced capacity)
– Personal care services – hairdressing and nail salons, barber shops (open with modifications)
-Museums, zoos and aquariums (maximum capacity 25%)
– Places of worship (max. 25% of capacity)
– Internal cinemas (maximum 25% of capacity or 100 people, whichever is less)
– Gyms and fitness centers closed (max. 10% of capacity)
– Family entertainment centers (go-kart racing, mini-golf, batting cages) outdoors with modifications only
Amusement parks, bars without meal service, bowling, indoor playgrounds, live theater, dry and steam saunas, nightclubs and festivals are not allowed in the red layer.
It has been more than a month since Governor Gavin Newsom suspended the regional order to stay at home, allowing Bay Area counties to reopen various business sectors, including outdoor dining and some in-house personal services such as haircuts .
When the order ended on January 25, all nine counties in the region moved to the purple layer in the governor’s color-coded reopening structure – and are now moving slowly to the softer red layer.
The state system classifies counties into four levels – “purple” (generalized), “red” (substantial), “orange” (moderate) or “yellow” (minimum) – that measure the spread of COVID-19 and dictate which types of businesses and activities can be opened. The structure allows counties to be more restrictive and move more slowly than the state at reopening, if they so wish.
The county level assignment is based on three metrics: the adjusted case rate (number of new cases per 100,000 residents, adjusted based on the volume of testing); the rate of positivity (percentage of people tested positive for the virus of all tested individuals); and a health equity metric.
Purple counties are reporting more than seven new daily cases per 100,000 residents and have positivity rates above 8%. For a county to move to the red level, it must report an average of four to seven daily cases per 100,000 residents and a test positivity of 5% to 8% for 14 consecutive days. The orange layer requires one to 3.9 cases per 100,000 and a test positivity of 2% to 4.9%, and the yellow layer, less than one case per 100,000 and positivity less than 2%.