THE Greater Sacramento area has exited the regional stay-at-home order based on four-week intensive care projections.
The region, which exited the order on Tuesday, January 12, has a current intensive care unit (ICU) capacity of 9.4%, but in coming weeks is seen to be at 19.1% capacity.
“We’re starting to see some stabilization both in ICUs as well as stabilization in our positivity rate. We’re also starting to see the rate of growth for hospitalizations beginning to decline,” Governor Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday. “Today, effectively immediately, we’re pulling the Sacramento Region out of the stay-at-home order.”
The determination was made based on current estimated regional ICU capacity available, measure of current community transmission, current regional case rates and the proportion of ICU cases being admitted.
State guidelines say that a region must be above 15% to move back to the tiered reopening system.
The region encompasses counties of Alpine, Amador, Butte, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Sierra, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba.
Alpine County is in the red tier, or substantial, and Sierra County is in the orange, or moderate, while the rest is in the most restrictive purple tier, meaning COVID-19 remains widespread in those counties.
Under the purple tier outlined in the “Blueprint for a Safer Economy,” retail stores, shopping centers and malls can have indoor operations with 25% capacity, and hair salons, barbershops and personal care services can reopen indoors with modifications.
Places of worship, gyms, and restaurants must operate outdoors.
“This is such good and hopeful news for our community, our workers and our small businesses,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said. “Let’s stay vigilant and socially distant so we can continue our recovery.”
The purple tier counties will also continue under the statewide curfew that has a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.
Meanwhile, Bay Area (4.7%), San Joaquin Valley (0%) and Southern California (0%) regions which will remain under the order as their projected four-week ICU capacities do not meet the criteria to exit.
California has 2,747,288 confirmed cases and 30,513 fatalities to date. The 7-day positivity rate is 13.5% and the 14-day positivity rate is 13.5%. (AJPress)
