Stanislaus County residents face another stay-home order due to raging COVID pandemic
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday a regional stay-home order in the coming days in the latest attempt to slow a coronavirus surge in California that’s resulting in close to 20,000 new cases every day.
The state order will close or restrict additional business activities in five regions of the state, where hospital intensive care units have fallen below 15 percent capacity. The San Joaquin Valley, including Stanislaus and nearby counties, is one of the affected regions.
State officials said some regions were expected to reach the threshold of the order by the end of the week.
Stanislaus County officials said after the announcement that it appears the stay-home order will apply to this county. Top county officials were analyzing the order to determine how and when it will be implemented.
The order will close bars, wineries and hair salons and restrict retail stores to 20 percent capacity. It does not close schools and essential industries.
Nonessential social gatherings are prohibited by the new stay-home order. In addition, the indoor recreation, playgrounds, salons, movie theaters and sporting events with a live audience will be closed.
If the new order is imposed in the region, restaurants can only provide takeout, delivery and pickup service to customers.
Hospitals in Stanislaus County have 3.4 percent availability in their intensive care units this week, according to county data. When it’s determined that ICUs are below 15 percent capacity in a region, authorities will have two days to implement the stay-home order in that region, state officials said.
The shutdown orders are expected to remain in place at least three weeks.
Stanislaus County officials awaiting details
Stanislaus County officials did not have a definitive reaction to the regional stay-home order, which isn’t quite as simple as Newsom’s previous order March 19 that told California residents statewide to stay home. Questions remained about how and when the new order would be implemented in San Joaquin Valley counties.
“We need to see the details,” county Chief Executive Officer Jody Hayes said. “We need to analyze the wording in the state order. It does appear there are going to be some impacts here.”
Hayes said it appears hospitals in the county are below the 15 percent ICU threshold. Shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday, Hayes was about to meet with the county’s COVID response team to discuss what the state announced.
After the three-week period of tight restrictions, counties showing they have the required intensive care capacity can ask to have the order lifted. State officials said a regional approach was taken with the order based on ICU capacity because health systems operate regionally in terms of managing resources.
Newsom said hospitals will be overwhelmed if nothing is done to curb COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths will continue to rise.
Stanislaus County residents will be expected to stay home unless they need to buy food, visit the drugstore, work in an essential industry and engage in allowed activities such as outdoor worship services or retail shopping. Newsom encouraged people to take walks and exercise to stay healthy.
In Stanislaus County, the surge is adding well over 200 new COVID-19 cases daily, with an average of two deaths per day. Wednesday’s count was 225 cases, while the county posted 448 cases Monday, though officials said the huge count Monday included some backlog from the Thanksgiving holiday.
More than 200 patients with the COVID-19 respiratory illness are being treated in local hospitals, including 48 in intensive care units. Unless something changes, surge projections predict hospitals will exceed their capacity for COVID-19 patients by the end of December.
The county was reporting fewer than 40 cases per day in early October when the state approved Stanislaus for the less restrictive red tier of California’s COVID-19 strategy. The county’s current daily case rate is 27 per 100,000 population (the county has 560,000 residents), four times higher than in October.
Stanislaus was returned to the state’s highly restrictive purple tier Nov. 16. Now, the newest stay-home order will impose more restrictions on top of that.
When state officials mentioned a new stay-home order early this week, Dr. Julie Vaishampayan said she wasn’t sure what more could close in a county already strapped with the state’s purple tier restrictions. The tier assignment put a stop to indoor restaurant dining, closed fitness centers and canceled indoor church services.
The state has resorted to stay-home edicts, a 10 p.m. curfew through Dec. 21 and travel advisories to battle the pandemic while it waits for newly developed vaccines for the coronavirus. California expects to receive 327,000 initial doses of vaccine in mid-December and the delivery of second doses within three weeks.
The first available vaccinations will be for health care workers. The state and its 58 counties are gearing up for vaccination of other priority groups and the general public as additional vaccines are available in the next three to six months.
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 12:53 PM.
