Los Angeles County has become the latest county in California to impose a mandatory quarantine on long-distance travelers.
At least two other counties – Santa Clara and San Francisco – have similar mandatory orders. The California Department of Public Health on November 13 issued a notice urging Californians to stay at home or in their area and avoid non-essential travel, including for tourism or recreation.
The regional order of stay at home prohibits hotels and other lodging companies from offering rooms for people visiting the area of tourism and leisure.
The changes are part of a desperate effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, which is bringing hospitals to the brink of collapse. LA County has seen an unprecedented increase in cases and deaths since November and has emerged as one of the nation’s top hot spots.
Airport travel has increased dramatically during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and officials fear that this could cause COVID-19 to spread further.
So, will quarantine work? Here’s what we know:
Who affects: Anyone traveling to LA County for leisure or recreation from anywhere outside of Southern California. This includes people who come to Los Angeles for non-essential reasons, including to visit relatives.
It also includes LA County residents who have left the region and are returning home.
The Southern California region includes the counties of Imperial, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura.
What they need to do: Quarantine for 10 days. This means that they need to stay at home or find other accommodation and avoid contact with other people, which means that they should not go out to grocery stores or restaurants, but receive food.
Who is exempt: Licensed healthcare professionals, those who work for essential government or infrastructure reasons, people in transit through LA County and don’t stay overnight, people who are members of professional or university sports teams, and people from a film or media production operating in the county , among others.
How long will the mandatory quarantine order remain in effect? Indefinitely. The county has not given a deadline for when it would be modified or terminated.
“We’ve already seen what happened after all the travel and mixing during the Thanksgiving holiday,” said LA County public health director Barbara Ferrer. “The possibilities are too great that, in addition to the memories and gifts you returned home with, you also brought the coronavirus.
“You may not have symptoms yet. You may never experience symptoms. But that does not mean that you are not infected with this virus. The best way to ensure that you do not infect others is to stay at home during the COVID-19 incubation period. And that means a minimum of 10 days. “
A negative test result on Day 3, Day 5 or Day 7 does not mean that a person cannot become positive on Day 8, Day 9 or Day 10, said Ferrer.
A negative test at the beginning of the quarantine period may simply not detect low levels of viruses in the body that will replicate at higher levels later.
“That’s why we are asking you to stay at home for 10 full days,” said Ferrer.
Those who tested positive and used a home test kit should notify all of their close contacts, said Ferrer.
“It’s all the people you’ve been in contact with for 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period, from two days before the test is positive until the last time you exposed people to yourself. And you need to tell them that they should be quarantined for 10 days, ”said Ferrer.
“If you have tested positive and need help isolating or notifying your close contacts, call 1 (833) 540-0473 and a public health specialist will help connect you to resources,” said Ferrer.
In the bay area, there have been doubts about the aggressiveness with which the authorities will enforce the rules. The quarantine order is enforceable by law in San Francisco; non-compliance is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine or imprisonment. However, officials in San Francisco told The Times last month that they were focusing on education instead of enforcement.
“We don’t want to use a criminal justice approach to a public health challenge,” said a spokesman for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.