Inside Dining is on the verge of returning to Los Angeles County, with health officials confirming Thursday that they will allow restaurants to once again welcome customers to their limited-capacity dining halls when the county moves into the ‘red’ tier of economic reopening of the state on four levels. blueprint.
The province is expected to move to the ‘red’ low on Monday.
While the state’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” allows for indoor dining in the “red” tier, individual counties are allowed to impose stricter restrictions. Los Angeles County public health officials have repeatedly warned of the danger of COVID-19 spreading in restaurants, raising questions about whether they would approve of indoor dining when the county emerges from its most restrictive ‘purple’ low.
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer referred twice this week to a new federal study linking in-person dining to an increase in COVID cases and deaths.
But the county released its plans for reopening the ‘red’ level on Thursday, and it includes indoor dining at the state-authorized 25% capacity. The province requires restaurants to have a distance of eight feet between all tables, which is limited to a maximum of six people from the same household.
The rules also call for increasing ventilation “as much as possible”.
Restaurant servers must already wear a face mask and face shield. With the new rules, the Department of Health “strongly recommends” that workers upgrade their face cover using either high quality N95 or KN95 masks, or a combination of double masking and face shield.
Health officials also strongly recommend that all employees be informed about and offered the opportunity to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Catering employees are already eligible to receive the shots.
Rules for other businesses once the county enters the ‘red’ level largely align with state guidelines:
- museums, zoos and aquariums can open within 25% of their capacity
- gyms and fitness centers can be opened indoors with a capacity of 10%, with the required masking
- Cinemas can open with a 25% capacity with reserved seats to provide a distance of at least 1.8 meters between customers
- retail and personal care businesses can increase in-house capacity by up to 50%
- Covered shopping centers can reopen for 50%, while common areas remain closed, but can open food courts with a capacity of 25% and in accordance with the other requirements for indoor restaurants.
Moving to the ‘red’ level will also allow theme parks to reopen April 1 – including Disneyland in Orange County and Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles County – at a 15% capacity, only with visitors in the state.
The rules also allow the resumption of activities at higher education institutions and reopening of personal instruction for students in grades 7-12. Private indoor gatherings are also allowed for people from up to three different households, with masking and physical distance. People who have been vaccinated can gather in small groups indoors without masking or distancing themselves.
County health officials said they expect to officially enter the ‘red’ level between midnight Monday morning and following Wednesday. The exact time will depend on when the state meets a threshold announced by Gavin Newsom to administer 2 million doses of COVID vaccine in the state’s lowest-income communities.
Newsom said this week that the state will hit that threshold on Friday. On Thursday morning, the state had administered 1,971,784 doses of vaccine to those low-income communities. Ferrer previously said the province is expected to officially advance to the ‘red’ level 48 hours after the state hits the vaccination threshold.
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According to Newsom’s most recent guidelines, when the state reaches the milestone of 2 million vaccines in low-income communities, counties will be able to step out of the blueprint’s most restrictive ‘purple’ layer when their average daily new COVID-19 infections reach 10 per 100,000 inhabitants – a looser standard than the current 7 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Under the new guidelines, Los Angeles and Orange counties are both immediately eligible to transition to the less restrictive ‘red’ level, as they are both below the 10 per 100,000 standard for two weeks. The new number of cases in Los Angeles County is currently 5.2 per 100,000 residents, while in Orange County it is 6 per 100,000.
The idea behind the 2 million dose threshold is to ensure that vaccines are distributed evenly across the state so that low-income communities disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic are not overlooked in the vaccination efforts . Newsom has ordered 40% of the state’s vaccine stockpile be reserved to ensure equity in the distribution process.
Just a few months ago waiting in long lines to be tested for COVID-19 was not uncommon, but today NBC4’s I-Team has learned that far fewer people are now waiting in line, although it is still important to get tested to be on COVID-19. to end the pandemic. Investigative reporter Joel Grover reports March 10, 2021.
Ferrer warned the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that while the number of cases and test positivity rates in the county have abruptly declined in recent weeks, things could easily deteriorate if residents become lax about infection control measures.
“This is the month I would say – the month of March, early April – when we need to be extremely careful,” she said. ‘Because we’ve been here before. We have been here with reopenings. We’ve been here on trips around Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ve seen what happens around holidays when we’re not really careful. … We need to keep everyone alive now so they can get vaccinated and stay alive. So this would be a time for extreme caution. ”
She specifically pointed out the spread of variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, which can spread more easily from person to person. Ferrer said the variant first identified in the UK has expanded its reach in Los Angeles County and is now believed to be responsible for 10% of all COVID cases in the county.
“There is also growing concern about a global fourth wave of COVID-19, as the number of cases started to increase in the last week of February, after six weeks of decline, especially in Europe,” she said.
On Thursday, the county reported a further 101 COVID-19 deaths, although three of those fatalities were announced by health officials in Long Beach on Wednesday. The new deaths raised the nationwide death toll from the entire pandemic to 22,304.
Another 1,378 cases were announced by the county. The new cases increased the cumulative pandemic total to 1,208,024.
According to state figures, as of Thursday, 1,015 people had been hospitalized for COVID, with 287 people in intensive care.