SAN JOSE – After months of having some of the state’s strictest COVID-19 shutdown rules, Santa Clara County is leaving its autonomous approach and moving closer to California’s mainstream, due to the decrease in virus cases and increase in vaccinations.
Public health officials said restrictions on outdoor activities, including youth sports, have been eased since Friday, as previously announced. And when the county moves to the red level of the state for reopening, which is expected to happen on Wednesday, they will allow the return of indoor dining halls and some meetings, with capacity and distance limits.
The expected restart of the indoor dining room (with 25% capacity) was good news for Kostas Perakis, who runs the family-owned Tasso’s restaurant and bar on Southwest Expressway in San Jose.
“We will open up and return to normal life. I love it, ”Perakis said Friday.
Like many restaurateurs, Perakis has tried to stay afloat with takeaways and al fresco dining, but said spending on outdoor tents, heaters and declining customer traffic still meant the business it went down to 70%. He added that there is no way to exaggerate the difference the indoor dining room makes to him.
“People like security and they don’t like being outside in the cold,” he said.
The changes were announced amid wider vaccine deployment as well as declining case and hospitalization rates. They also point to a change with the county’s alignment closer to the state’s coronavirus guidelines: Critics have been denouncing for months against county leaders and their health officer, Dr. Sara Cody, for enforcing more rules. strict than other counties.
“With vaccines now reaching the community more widely, including more than half of those over 65, we are making significant progress in protecting the most vulnerable members of the community,” Cody said in a statement. “As things get better, it’s still important that everyone continues to practice basic prevention measures: facial coverage, social distancing, and doing as much outdoor activity as possible.”
The county’s new orientation on outdoor meetings requires a person to wear a face that is covered only if they are less than six feet from a person outside their home. In addition, people can now sing at outdoor meetings without covering their faces as long as they stay about five feet away from each other.
A county statement to this news organization added on Friday that officials “determined that the benefits of expanding permitted outdoor activities, where the risk of transmission is much lower, outweigh the risks.”
It also allows for the resumption of most youth sports and the county revokes its rules in favor of the state guidance released late last week, which allows high-contact outdoor sports to be practiced in any county with a rate of cases per capita less than 14 per 100,000 residents. Santa Clara County had announced Monday that it would follow the new state rules.
With 5,525 new cases reported Thursday, according to data collected by this news organization, the California average over the past week fell to its lowest point since the first week of November, while the number of Californians hospitalized with COVID-19 fell below 6,000 times before Thanksgiving.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday at a news conference in Fresno that the state now receives about 1.6 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and Modern vaccines each week from the Biden administration and that in California s ‘had administered 8.24 million shots as of Friday.
He expects vaccination rates to continue to rise with the early approval of a Johnson and Johnson vaccine that represents new flexibility in vaccines, as it consists of only one shot (current vaccines require two doses spaced between three and four weeks difference) and does not need special refrigeration.
However, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, continued to push diligence in light of the increase in national cases over the past three days, which has led her to suspect that the gains in places like California they could be stopped if restrictions are reduced and new, more contagious virus variants continue to spread.
“We may end up with the virus,” Walensky said at a White House press conference on Friday, “but it’s clear the virus isn’t done with us.”
Staff writers Evan Webeck, Laurence Miedema and The Associated Press contributed to this report.