Riverside County notifies Gov. Newsom of readiness to reopen
Riverside County officials believe that based on public health data, the county is ready to move into California’s accelerated stage two and reopen more businesses.
Stay up-to-date with the latest local coronavirus updates at KESQ.com/Coronavirus
In a letter to Governor Gavin 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
California is in stage 2 on the roadmap to recovery, which allows some retail businesses to reopen for curbside delivery and pick up.
In addition, County Supervisors noted that some of the key metrics for counties to reopen were unrealistic to Riverside County.
"In our opinion, the metrics are unrealistic for urban counties, and Riverside County in particular, where our geographic size and population make it impossible that no COVID-19 death would take place during the 14-day period," reads a letter signed by all five Supervisors.
County Supervisors called for the adoption of the federal epidemiology benchmarks, which Riverside County is already achieving because of a downward trend in cases, positive cases, and flu and COVID-19 like symptomatic cases.
Click here to view the county's full epidemiology report
The county recently developed a "Readiness and Reopening Framework," a plan to reopen the local economy with the proper health and safety measures in place
"We are ready to cautiously reopen based on public health data. Further, we believe that, if given the opportunity to present this framework to your office, you will agree," reads the letter.
As of May 15, Riverside County has had 5,618 positive cases, with 3,430 recoveries and 242 deaths. There are currently 184 patients hospitalized with 68 in the ICU.
The county's doubling rate continues to grow, today officials announced it increased from 19 days to 24 days.
The doubling rate is how many days it takes for cases to double.
