Coronavirus updates: CSU campuses go online-only for fall; Newsom shares more guidelines
As California’s coronavirus death toll continues to rise by roughly a few dozen fatalities each day, Gov. Gavin Newsom gave a more detailed explanation of Phase 2 of his reopening plan Tuesday, sharing guidelines for restaurants and clarifying that malls can open for curbside pickup service
Shortly before the governor’s daily briefing started at noon, the state announced approval to two Northern California counties — El Dorado and Butte — to begin reopening more Phase 2 businesses ahead of the rest of the state.
“The counties below have filed an Attestation that they have met the readiness criteria,” the state wrote on its public health website, listing those two counties. “These counties can move more quickly through Stage 2 opening sectors once state guidance is posted for that sector.”
The guidance was posted early Tuesday afternoon as Newsom spoke.
Newsom said during the day’s news briefing that two more counties’ approvals are also expected to be announced later Tuesday.
Roughly 40 million Californians have been under Newsom’s mandatory stay-at-home order since March 19 — eight weeks ago this Thursday — as part of a drastic effort to flatten the coronavirus pandemic’s growth curve to levels that won’t overwhelm the state’s hospital systems.
At least 2,847 Californians have died of COVID-19 among nearly 70,000 confirmed cases, according to a Sacramento Bee survey of counties’ public health departments as of late Tuesday morning.
Prior to Tuesday’s news conference, the state’s gradual reopening had been marked in part by confusion, debate and some defiance from local governments and business owners, eager to get back to business and stop the economic damage.
Phase 2 of the governor’s plan calls for the reopening of industries considered lower risk for virus transmission. This includes retail stores, in-restaurant dining, shopping malls and some office spaces — but all with the caveat that they will need to implement protocols to maintain social distancing to continue curbing the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the highly contagious coronavirus.
But Phase 2 will have different stages of reopening. Newsom gave the go-ahead for a number of types of retail businesses to reopen last Friday, but for curbside pickup only. Dine-in restaurant service and offices remain closed for business, with Newsom expected to list more requirements and conditions for their reopening during Tuesday’s noon news conference.
After previously saying malls should remain closed, Newsom said Tuesday that traditional malls, outlet malls and strip malls may reopen for curbside pickup service only.
Newsom last week announced that the state will be moving toward allowing more “regional variance,” effectively letting individual counties accelerate ahead of the rest of the state in the reopening process to some extent if they can prove virus activity is significantly low, but with the governor saying the state maintains the right to intervene of early reopeners see significant spikes in COVID-19 activity.
The announcement followed weeks of urging and demands from a number of government leaders in more rural and suburban parts of the state, including Butte and El Dorado counties, where confirmed COVID-19 infection and fatality rates have been far lower than urban hubs like Los Angeles County.
As of Monday, Placer, El Dorado, Yuba, Sutter, Nevada, Butte, Colusa and Modoc counties in Northern California had submitted or were about to submit what the state is calling “attestation” documents to the governor and state Department of Public Health, offering evidence that coronavirus spread remains minor in those jurisdictions. The two additional counties Newsom said could be approved before the end of the day would likely come from that list.
With El Dorado and Butte counties’ attestation documents approved, El Dorado officials waited for the governor’s guidance at the midday news conference before letting businesses open up shop. In Butte County, though, retailers were allowed to reopen their doors Tuesday morning, a public health spokeswoman said.
CSU, community colleges going online-only for fall semester
California State University Chancellor Timothy White during Tuesday’s board meeting announced that the system’s 23 campuses, including Sacramento State and Fresno State, would not reopen in the fall, and that classes will be held “primarily virtual” except for some activities that cannot be delivered remotely.
Potential exceptions could include clinical classes for nursing students and hands-on courses for agriculture, engineering and architecture students.
“Anything done on a campus this fall won’t be as it was in the past, it will be different,” he said.
The Los Rios Community College District, which includes American River, Cosumnes River, Folsom Lake and Sacramento City colleges in Sacramento County, has announced it will move to a fully online class schedule due to concerns over COVID-19. A small number of classes that cannot be moved online will remain in-person, according to an email to students.
Sierra College in Rocklin will also hold its fall classes online.
Governor’s office shares restaurant guidelines
Newsom’s office shared a 12-page set of guidelines for restaurants, spelling out protocols they should follow before reopening for dine-in service once it is allowed in the restaurant’s county.
The document includes roughly 100 bullet points of criteria for restaurants, some phrased more strictly than others.
“Face coverings are strongly encouraged for all employees, however, they are required for any employee (e.g., server, manager, busser, food runner, etc.) who must be within six feet of customers,” one bullet point reads. “All restaurant workers should minimize the amount of time spent within six feet of guests.”
Other items listed include protocols for disinfecting virtually all parts of the restaurant; strong encouragement of touch-less or contact-less services wherever possible; and the reconfiguring of both kitchens and dining areas to maintain six feet of distance between employees and parties of guests.
“People in the same party seated at the same table do not have to be six feet apart,” but “all members of the party must be present before seating and hosts must bring the entire party to the table at one time,” another rule reads.
The state is not, however, “being prescriptive with how many seats restaurants can have,” Newsom said, instead focusing on measures that specifically deal with keeping six feet of distance between people as much as possible. Eateries may also extend their outdoor seating as doing so remains in accordance with laws and local ordinances, the state guidelines say.
Which counties meet preliminary Phase 2 opening criteria?
Newsom’s administration during last Thursday’s news conference shared a set of preliminary criteria that counties may need to satisfy before proceeding ahead of the state in Phase 2 of reopening. A more detailed and finalized version of the requirements is expected to be released Tuesday.
Thursday’s version presented a strict test. The requirements, among others, include counties having no COVID-19 deaths and no more than one new case of the coronavirus per 100,000 people over a span of two weeks.
State leaders also said counties would need a staff of at least 15 contact tracers per every 100,000 residents; a minimum testing capacity of 1.5 per 1,000 residents per day; the ability to house at least 15 percent of its homeless population; sufficient personal protective equipment for medical and essential workers; and other less empiric qualifiers.
Not all counties have made data on their testing capacity or contact tracing staff publicly available, but their COVID-19 death and infection figure are available.
Looking at infection rate and fatality requirements alone, a Bee review of data from April 26 through May 10 found that 33 counties of California’s 58 counties had no deaths over that span, 28 had fewer than one new case per 100,000 and 26 counties met both of those marks.
The counties meeting both requirements include effectively all of those north of, but not including, Yolo and Sacramento counties; the Sierra foothills counties of Placer, El Dorado, Amador and Alpine; plus Calaveras, Tuolumne, Inyo and Santa Cruz counties.
Businesses in Sacramento prepare for phased reopening
The pandemic has brought about economic devastation, with Newsom during Monday’s news briefing saying 4.5 million Californians have filed for unemployment insurance since mid-March, but that the state’s true jobless rate will likely surpass 20 percent before the crisis is over.
In the Sacramento area, businesses both small and large across a range of economic sectors have seen temporary closures become permanent.
Even some of Sacramento’s most acclaimed establishments have not been able to survive by takeout and delivery business only.
One of the city’s most renowned restaurants, Biba, will close for good, ownership announced in early May. Sutter Street Grill, central to Folsom’s Historic District, will also not reopen. And there’s concern that in smaller towns — places like Isleton, Knights Landing and Walnut Grove — the ongoing crisis will shutter some of the family-run establishments that are hallmarks of rural California.
A number of restaurants that have opened their dining rooms in defiance of Newsom’s statewide order have given a preview of how seat-in dining may have to proceed as restaurants are allowed to reopen while implemented what Newsom has called “meaningful modifications.”
Aji Japanese Bistro in El Dorado Hills’ Town Center, for instance, opened its doors to diners on Sunday — but not before installing partitions between booths and sanitation stations, as well as cutting its maximum capacity in half.
In terms of retail shopping, Arden Fair Mall, which is off to a sluggish start in terms of curbside pickup business, will lose anchor store Nordstrom.
While curbside service is permitted there too, Roseville’s Westfield Galleria mall has not yet reopened any stores except for two of its restaurants, according to its website.
Other retail sites, including one local mall, are looking for unique ways to adapt their business plans as in-store shopping and in-restaurant dining are permitted to resume.
The Palladio, an outdoor mall off of Highway 50 in Folsom, in a news release Monday announcing that several of its stores have opened for curbside pickup only floated the idea that once they’re allowed to open for dine-in service, the mall’s restaurants could maintain social distancing protocols without reducing capacity. The mall could do this by extending tables further out onto the sidewalks or even into the shopping center’s interior streets, Palladio general manager Gloria Wright wrote.
Supermarkets and warehouse stores, which have been permitted to stay open throughout the pandemic as they are essential services, have made a range of procedural adjustments for both safety and to soothe shoppers’ anxiety — from social distancing mandates such as one-way traffic, to mandatory masks for all.
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: 80 dead, nearly 1,600 infected
At least 80 people have died from COVID-19 the four-county Sacramento region among 1,584 confirmed cases, according to the counties’ public health departments. Another 58 infections and three deaths have come in nearby Yuba and Sutter counties.
Sacramento County public health officials have recorded 1,181 cases of the coronavirus and 50 deaths, last updated 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. The infection total grew by eight from the previous day’s update. The county’s most recent fatality was reported Friday.
Yolo County reported three new confirmed cases and two deaths Tuesday, bringing totals to 177 and 22. Fifteen of those deaths — including at least one staff member — have come at Stollwood Convalescent Hospital, located within the St. John’s Retirement Village campus in Woodland, according to the county website.
Placer County has reported 170 lab-confirmed cases and eight fatalities from the coronavirus, last updated 8 a.m. Tuesday. More than 135 of the cases are in South Placer, which includes Rocklin, Roseville and Lincoln. Placer County last reported a coronavirus death on April 15.
El Dorado County reported two more cases over the weekend, bringing the total number of people infected there to 56. No deaths from the virus have been reported, as of Monday afternoon. Most of the infections are in the Lake Tahoe and El Dorado Hills areas, at about 20 apiece.
Sutter County has confirmed 35 COVID-19 cases, including one Tuesday, and two related fatalities. The most recent death in Sutter came April 4.
Yuba County reports one death among 23 total cases, including two new ones as of Tuesday. The death was reported April 9.
World numbers: 4.25 million infected, 290,000 dead
More than 4.25 million people have tested positive and over 290,000 have died globally from COVID-19, according to a data map maintained by Johns Hopkins University as of Tuesday afternoon.
The United States surpassed 80,000 fatalities Monday and passed 82,000 on Tuesday, nearly 50,000 more deaths than the next country on the list. The U.S. also makes up nearly one-third of all the world’s confirmed cases, with more than 1.36 million.
Within the U.S., more than 27,000 people have died in New York state, 9,500 in New Jersey and more than 5,100 in Massachusetts. Another 4,700 have died in Michigan, 3,900 in Pennsylvania, about 3,600 in Illinois and just over 3,000 in Connecticut. Colorado, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Florida, Louisiana and California each report between roughly 1,000 and 2,800 coronavirus deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
Following the U.S. in death toll are the United Kingdom, at almost 33,000 dead; Italy at close to 31,000; Spain and France at just under 27,000 each; and Brazil with 12,400 dead. After that are Belgium at about 8,700 fatalities, Germany at over 7,700, Iran at 6,700, the Netherlands at 5,500 and Canada at almost 5,300.
Russia has recently shot to the No. 2 spot in reported, lab-confirmed infections at 232,000, but its reported death toll is only about 2,100, according to Johns Hopkins.
What is COVID-19? How is the coronavirus spread?
Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within 6 feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby. The CDC says it’s possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”
Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Most develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.
This story was originally published May 12, 2020 at 8:16 AM.
