California governor expected to lift regional stay-at-home orders Monday

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to lift regional stay-at-home orders in the state on Monday — allowing for gyms and restaurants to engage in limited outdoor activity, according to a letter to its members from the California Restaurant Association.

The association, which shared the letter with CNN, said it had been notified of the plan Sunday evening by the governor’s office.

Currently counties in Southern California, the San Joaquin Valley, and the Bay Area are under regional stay-at-home orders which were instituted in early December as Covid-19 cases began to surge.

The Los Angeles Times reported that while hospitals in southern and central parts of the state remain under pressure from a high number of patients, the Newsom administration projects that intensive care unit capacity in those areas will exceed 15% over the next four weeks. That would allow for the lifting of regional shutdowns under the governor’s December order. State officials have not shared how they make the “four-week ICU calculations,” according to the newspaper.

Once announced, the change is expected to take effect immediately with all counties reverting to a tier system that assigns risk based on the numbers of cases and rates of positive Covid-19 tests, the newspaper reports.

It is unclear whether stay-at-home orders in Los Angeles County, where hospitals continue to be overwhelmed, will be lifted when the order is canceled, the Times reported.

Across the US, Covid-19 infections kept soaring this weekend, as did the death toll. As of early Monday, more than 419,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University.