Good morning LA It’s March 10th.
It is with the greatest hesitation that I say: The internal dinner may be resumed soon
At a meeting yesterday, Barbara Ferrer, director of public health for LA County, said the county is prone to graduate from the most restrictive purple layer in the state to the slightly less restrictive red layer this weekend. (The color-coded level system guides what can be opened and exactly how it can be opened.) Counties are eligible to move to the red level when they have an adjusted daily case rate of four to seven per 100,000 people, and one average positivity rate of five to eight percent.
My colleague Elina Shatkin reports that at the red level, restaurants can open indoor meals with 25% capacity or 100 customers, whichever is less. Wineries and tasting rooms can only start internal service at the next level (orange) and bars, breweries and distilleries must remain completely closed until then.
There are a few reasons why LA County – after a terrible and deadly winter wave – is already looking to move to the red layer: Coronavirus cases have declined, the authorities have adjusted their vaccination strategy and the referrals have changed slightly.
But, we’ve been on this path before. After being forced to close shortly after the pandemic began, restaurants in Los Angeles were allowed to reopen for dinner inside – yes, dinner inside! – in May last year. At that time, there were no official guidelines and restaurants were in the code of honor to follow the protocol.
This did not go well.
From there, city and county officials restaurants closed again, then reopened them for an outdoor dinner, then closed them to dine al fresco again, all culminating in some restorers simply ignoring the rules completely.
All of that means, let’s take it one step at a time. It will be great if LA moves to the red level, and not just because more companies can reopen – it will mean fewer people will be sick.
Read on to find out more about what’s going on in LA today, and stay safe out there.
What else you need to know today
Before you go … Disneyland announces its reopening
Prepare your mouse ears and masks with the Disney theme. At Disney’s shareholders’ meeting on Tuesday, CEO Bob Chapek announced that the company hopes to reopen the Southern California parks – with limited capacity – at the end of April.
“Here in California, we are encouraged by the positive trends that we are seeing and we hope that they will continue to improve,” said Chapek.
Although he did not offer a specific date, he said it should be announced “in the coming weeks”. The state announced last week that the theme parks could reopen on April 1, but there are some logistics that mean it won’t happen anytime soon.
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