Gov. Newsom relaxes some criteria for reopening
During Monday's update, Gov. Newsom announced he would be relaxing some criteria for reopening. He said most of the state may be able to reopen more quickly.
Newsom cited a trend of decreasing hospitalizations and ICU patients.
Newsom said the state's stay-at-home order could be drastically modified in the next few weeks if the trends continue, even possibly allowing professional sporting events to resume without spectators by the first week in June
Individual counties will be able to move further into stage 2 by notifying the California Department of Public Health. Last week, Riverside County sent a letter to Newsom notifying him of the county's readiness to reopen more businesses.
In their letter to Newsom, County Supervisors note that the county has the ability to "meet, exceed, or plan to achieve" six of the seven criteria for a county to accelerated through stage 2.
This includes:
- Plan to protect stage 1 essential workers
- Ample testing capacity
- Aggressive plan to expand contact tracing capability
- Exceeded a minimum of 35 percent surge capacity in our healthcare system
- Demonstrated ability to protect vulnerable populations
- Identified triggers for modifications
County Supervisors noted that some of the criteria to reopen was impossible to meet, such as no coronavirus-related deaths in a 14-day period.
The criteria has been relaxed a bit.
New Criteria:
- Stable or down trending hospitalizations
- Stable hospitalizations of COVID individuals on a 7-day average of daily percent change of less than 5% OR no more than 20 COVID hospitalizations on any single day in the past 14 days
- Cases per population count and Test positivity rate
- Less than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past 14 days OR less than 8% testing positive in the past 7 days
As of Monday, May 18, Most of the counties in Northern California are read further into stage 2, however, no Southern California counties have been approved to move further into stage 2.
The state's website reveals that Riverside County is showing downward trends in hospitalizations and ICU patients.
Riverside County Board Chair V. Manuel Perez says he has been in contact with key officials in the California Governor’s administration. He reports that major news is expected for local small businesses in Riverside County, Southern California and across the state soon.
Stay with News Channel 3 for continuing updates.
Newsom's office announced on Friday that his coronavirus updates will no longer be daily. Download the KESQ News Channel 3 app on the Apple Store or Google Play to stay up to date with the latest coronavirus updates across the state and here in the Coachella Valley.
You can watch the Governor's updates live at Noon on News Channel 3 or KESQ.com.
