Counties around the Bay Area immediately planned on how to move forward with reopening their areas after California officials lifted the regional restrictions on Monday.
The state had to designate each county across a color-coded tier on its reopening blueprint before the reopening could push through. This list would determine what activities and business establishments are allowed to reopen and in what capacity.
Bay Area Reopens
The purple tier is the top tier of the state’s lockdown restrictions and only permits certain indoor and outdoor activities to continue. Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, Marin, San Francisco, and Sonoma counties all expect to return to the top tier. However, officials would still have to wait until Tuesday for confirmation.
Restaurants are allowed to provide outdoor dining, gyms and fitness classes can hold sessions outside, and hair salons and barbershops can service clients inside their establishments, under the purple tier. On Tuesday, San Francisco aims to begin purple tier operations and businesses, but it remains unclear how other Bay Area counties could operate the new changes.
City officials said that San Francisco would continue to implement its curfew that runs between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m., noting that they do not wish to rush their reopening process.
“We’re taking the initial steps in a situation where the rate of the virus is still relatively high; we want to see that number continue to come down before we release that 10 to five order,” Dr Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s public health director, said, KTVU reported.
Due to surging cases and hospitalizations that quickly filled up the region’s ICU capacity, the Bay Area’s stay-at-home order was put into effect by officials on December 17. Local leaders decided to lift the Bay Area’s lockdown restrictions due to ICU capacity stabilizing at this moment, and new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are steadily declining.
