Residents of Marin and San Mateo counties are seeing red. Which is a good thing.
The California Department of Public Health has moved both counties up a notch in the state's color-coded risk assessment system, from purple, signifying "widespread" coronavirus transmission, to red, indicating "moderate" spread of the virus. The change takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday that other counties are close to moving to less restrictive levels as well. Based on state data, San Francisco, Napa and Santa Clara counties are among those likely to see an easing as soon as next week.
Here is some of what residents and business in San Mateo and Marin can now do, according to state guidelines:
- Retail establishments can expand indoor capacity to 50%
- Indoor malls can expand indoor capacity to 50% (food courts must remain closed)
- Gyms and fitness studios, including yoga and dance studios, can open indoors at 10% capacity
- Restaurants are allowed to open indoors at 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer
- Museums are allowed to open indoors at 25% capacity
- Movie theaters are allowed to open indoors at 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer
- Cultural ceremonies, including weddings and funerals, are allowed indoors at 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer (Churches and houses of worship will stay at 25% indoor capacity.)
Marin says the move up to red, also called Tier 2, will allow any school that has not yet reopened for in-person learning to do so starting March 1. The county says nearly 90% of schools are already offering some form of instruction in physical classrooms.
The tier-status change is due to the low percentage of positive tests in low-income communities, the county said.
"Among residents in census tracts in the lowest quartile on the California Healthy Places Index only one in 25 tested were found to be infected," Marin said in a press release. "This is down from nearly one in five at the height of the pandemic in August. ... Areas once stricken with outbreaks — including San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood and portions of Novato — are seeing decreases in COVID-19 cases."
Other factors that qualify a move up in the state's four-tier "Blueprint for a Safer Economy" hierarchy include decreases in new cases per 100,000 people and fewer positive test rates, but Marin did not cite those.
San Mateo County says its transition to a more lenient category of reopening is due to a case rate that's fallen to 5.6%, as well as an improvement in the health equity index.
Marin and San Mateo are now among nine California counties in the red tier. Two counties are in the orange tier, which is considered Tier 3, and allows for even more reopenings. The lowest risk category is yellow — Tier 4 — which San Francisco reached last October, before the winter surge plunged it back into the purple.