Yolo County now requires masks in public. Face covering order enforceable next week
Yolo County has made it mandatory to wear masks or face coverings in public or while working at an essential job, an effort to curb spread of the coronavirus, according to a Friday morning announcement.
The county in a statement announced the new health order, which it says takes effect immediately but is “not enforceable” until 8 a.m. Monday.
Face coverings will be required in public settings, including but not limited to shopping at a store, waiting in line outside the store, picking up food from a restaurant or while taking public transportation or ridesharing. Businesses must also require employees, contractors and volunteers to wear face coverings at their workplace, and inform customers by posting signs telling them to do so.
Businesses also must refuse service to any customer not wearing a face covering, the order says.
Face coverings are not required at home, while in a car alone or with members of the same household, or outdoors when “walking, hiking, bicycling or running” for exercise. Residents must still keep six feet of distance when outside.
Children under 2 or those with health conditions whose doctors have advised against wearing face coverings are also not required to wear them.
“This order is informed by the Centers for Disease Control, scientific evidence, and best practices regarding the most effective approaches to slow the transmission of communicable diseases, such as COVID-19,” the county news release said.
Yolo becomes the first in the four-county Sacramento region to make facial coverings mandatory. Contra Costa County in the Bay Area recently made masks mandatory, and Los Angeles County did so late last week. Sacramento and Placer counties’ public health departments have recommended face coverings when in public, following updated guidance in recent weeks from the federal CDC and state health leaders on the subject.
Additionally, Yolo County on Friday amended its shelter-in-place order, announcing four outdoor activities that will be permitted so long as people follow social distancing and face covering guidelines: golf courses, firearm and archery ranges and boat ramps may reopen, and fishing is permitted.
Yolo County has also unveiled what it called its “Roadmap to Recovery,” the draft of a plan that will be considered next Tuesday at a Board of Supervisors meeting for the jurisdiction’s next steps during the coronavirus pandemic. The county’s shelter-in-place order, currently set to end May 1 will be extended on or before that date, with new amendments from the “roadmap” incorporated when approved.
Yolo’s ‘roadmap’ plan
Yolo County’s drafted “Roadmap to Recovery” document comes less than two weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom shared six indicators that make up a “framework” for when the state may start loosening elements of its stay-at-home order.
The county includes its own set of indicators, some of which are “community-based cases, deaths, hospitalizations, and overall healthcare capacity.”
“There is flexibility in this Roadmap to move forward and release additional services or business (if indicators show improvement) or backwards (if indicators show regression),” the document says.
Yolo’s roadmap calls testing a priority and important consideration, but notes it is not currently the county’s responsibility.
“(T)he county has very little control at the local level regarding access and processing of COVID-19 tests. In lieu of the ability to test as comprehensively as needed, the County will use additional metrics including the number of outbreaks, hospitalizations, and deaths to evaluate the ongoing health of our community.
“The number and proportion of tests to the population may impact when a full reopening of the County may occur.”
Also in the roadmap are three “guiding principles” in allowing activities to resume: the first acknowledging that California’s shelter-in-place order governs what activities are allowable; second, that allowable activities must “be easily modified or require no modification” to include social distancing; and third, that allowable activities should “minimize the use of shared or communal” equipment.
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 9:21 AM.
