Mayor London Breed announced Tuesday that San Francisco is transitioning from the most restrictive purple to the milder red.
In the red row, California allows new business areas to be reopened and some indoor activities to expand such as restaurants, museums, cinemas, and fitness with restrictions.
With a few exceptions, the reopening of the city is what the state allows.
From Wednesday 8:00 a.m., the city will start operating:
– Eating al fresco with three households of up to six people
– Personal services that require the removal of masks both outdoors and indoors, with specific health and safety measures in place
– Indoor dining (including full catering bars, food courts, hotel restaurants) with a capacity of 25%, but limited to four people from a household, with indoor dinner ending until 10:00 p.m. and other safety requirements being met
– Indoor gyms and fitness centers with a capacity of 10%
– Indoor museums, zoos and aquariums with a capacity of 25%
– Indoor cinemas with a capacity of 25% without concessions
– Standalone outdoor amusement park rides such as ferris wheels, carousels, and train rides
– Restricted use of indoor pools
The city is also lifting nighttime restrictions on gatherings and non-essential business activities between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.
In the red row, middle and high schools that have not yet opened can resume opening with a COVID-19 safety plan approved by the San Francisco Health Officer. According to the mayor’s office, all other schools may already be open with an approved security plan.
While the state allows indoor retailers to increase capacity in the red to 50%, SF will cap the cap at 25%. The state also allows indoor gatherings for up to three households with restrictions; The city will continue to restrict this, the statement said.
“Now I know it doesn’t sound like being in the red, but it’s great compared to where we are,” Breed said at a press conference streamed live by KPIX. “That means this is just the beginning.” This is the beginning of a new day for San Francisco. “
The mayor said at the press conference that the city could jump into the orange row within three weeks and allow for even more openings.
In the Bay Area, counties of Napa and Santa Clara also switched from the purple to the red layer, according to the state dashboard that is tracking the pandemic across all of California’s 58 counties. Marin and San Mateo were in the red last week.
The color-coded framework for reopening the state determines which businesses can be opened. The assignment of the levels of a county is mainly based on two metrics: the case rate (the number of new cases per 100,000 population adjusted based on the test volume) and the 7-day positivity rate (the percentage of people who test positive for the virus were) all persons who will be tested). In order for a district to switch to the red category, it has to report an average of four to seven cases per 100,000 inhabitants and a test positivity of 5% to 8% on 14 consecutive days.
There is also a third metric, the health equity metric, which the state considers for larger counties. Its purpose is to encourage counties to test for COVID-19 in deprived neighborhoods and to ensure that positivity rates in those neighborhoods do not lag far behind the districts overall quota.
It’s been more than a month since Governor Gavin Newsom canceled the regional home-stay order, allowing the Bay Area counties to reopen several areas of business, including outdoor dining and some indoor personal services like haircuts.
