California Lifts Regional Stay-at-Home Orders and Statewide Curfew

Updated 2 p.m. Monday

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday lifted regional stay-at-home orders across the state in response to improving coronavirus conditions and increased hospital capacity, returning the state to a tier-based system of county-by-county restrictions.

"All regions, effective immediately, are no longer in the stay-at-home order," Newsom said at a press briefing Monday. "We're seeing a flattening of the curve. Everything that should be up is up. Everything that should be down is down."

The order had been in place for over a month in the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California regions, covering the majority of the state's counties. All but four counties will now go back to the most restrictive purple tier, which allows for modified outdoor dining, outdoor church services and some youth sports competitions. Hair and nail salons can also reopen indoors at limited capacity. But bars that only serve beverages must still remain shuttered.

Individual counties can still impose stricter requirements despite the relaxed mandate from the state.

The state is also lifting a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.

Following Monday's announcement, officials in many California counties — including Marin, Contra Costa, Alameda and Santa Clara — announced they would allow outdoor restaurant dining and other services to reopen. San Francisco will wait until Thursday to do so, Mayor London Breed said on Monday. “We will be moving forward with some limited re-openings, including outdoor dining and personal services,” she wrote in a tweet.

Orange County planned to lift some restrictions as well, said Jessica Good, a spokesperson for the county health agency.

In Los Angeles County, home to 10 million people, county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said outdoor dining will reopen Friday with capacity limits for restaurants.

The state's decision comes amid improving trends in California's rate of infections, hospitalizations and intensive care unit capacity, as well as vaccinations.

"Today, we can lay claim to starting to see some real light at the end of the tunnel as it relates to case numbers," Newsom said, pointing to a notable decline in average statewide case rates over the last two weeks and a nearly 20% decrease in hospitalizations.

"Each region's a little bit different, but we are in a position projecting four weeks forward with a significant decline in the case rates, positivity rates," he said. "We are anticipating still more declines in hospitalizations and more declines in ICU use. And that's why we're lifting that stay-at-home order effective immediately today."

But he warned that despite the encouraging data, the virus was still raging, and California was by no means "out of the woods." As of Monday, the state topped 3.1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 37,118 deaths, according to its public health website.

Newsom imposed the stay-at-home order in December, as new coronavirus cases exploded. Under the system, a multi-county region had to shut down most businesses and order people to stay home if ICU capacity dropped below 15%. An 11-county Northern California region was never under the order. The Greater Sacramento region exited the order earlier this month.

The state makes its determinations based on four-week projections of ICU capacity, although officials have not fully disclosed the methodology behind the forecasts, spurring confusion among many local and state leaders. Newsom said those projections are based on four variables, including each region's case rates, rates of transmission, ICU capacity and the percentage of cases that end up in the ICU.

California's overall projected ICU capacity for Feb. 21 is just over 30%, he said, with regional projected ICU capacities ranging from 18.9% in the Greater Sacramento region to 33.3% in Southern California.

Last weekend, the Bay Area's ICU capacity increased significantly, to 23% — up from single digits just last week — while the San Joaquin Valley agricultural region rose to 1.3%, its first time above zero in more than a month. The huge Southern California region, the state's most populous, remains at zero ICU capacity.

If Monday's announcement feels familiar, it's because this marks the  third time during the pandemic that Newsom has imposed sweeping restrictions across the state in response to surges of the virus, and then subsequently eased those rules, allowing counties to reopen at different rates.

Republicans said Newsom was relaxing the rules in response to political pressure and the threat of a recall. Republican organizers have until mid-March to gather 1.5 million signatures to force a recall against Newsom, who is halfway through his first term.

"This Governor’s decisions have never been based on science. Him re-opening our state is not an attempt to help working Californians, but rather an attempt to counter the Recall Movement. It’s sad and pathetic," California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson tweeted.

Criticism wasn't limited to Newsom's political opponents.

Jeff Smith, Santa Clara County executive, said his county had no plans to impose stricter rules but still criticized the state's decision.

"Essentially it’s a decision being made politically that puts people’s lives at risk, especially in Southern California," he told The Mercury News.

Newsom called the suggestion that he was lifting the order due to political pressure "complete, utter nonsense."

Last summer, the state developed a system of color-coded tiers that dictated the level of restrictions on businesses and individuals based on virus conditions in each of California's 58 counties.

Newsom on Monday also said the rate of COVID-19 vaccine inoculations in California, which has lagged behind many other states, is rapidly increasing. That rate has tripled in recent weeks, he said, with an average of nearly 127,000 doses administered per day over the last week.

"And we're just getting going," he said, comparing California to a large ship. "It takes a little bit of time to shift course. But when it shifts course, it builds tremendous momentum. That's exactly what we have done."

He also announced the launch of "My Turn," a new site being piloted in Los Angeles and San Diego counties that informs residents when and where they can receive the vaccine. Newsom called it "the most comprehensive end-to-end system of its type in the United States," and said he expects it to soon launch statewide. The effort comes in response to the state's largely decentralized and often chaotic vaccine rollout that has led to widespread confusion and caused major backups.

On Monday, the governor also said he had reached an agreement with top legislative leaders to extend eviction protections through the end of June, while using federal money to pay off up to 80% of most tenants' unpaid rent.

The proposal, which must be approved by the state Legislature, would extend a state law scheduled to expire next Monday that prevents landlords from evicting tenants who could not pay their rent between March and August because of the coronavirus pandemic.

To be eligible for that protection, tenants must sign a "declaration of hardship" that they they have been impacted by the pandemic and must pay at least 25% of their rent due between Sept. 1 and Jan. 31.

This article includes reporting from KQED's Matthew Green and the Associated Press' Kathleen Ronayne and John Antczak.