The Los Angeles County Public Health department confirmed on Thursday the news announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday that movie theaters can open indoors at 25% capacity “with reserved seating only where each group is seated with at least 6 feet of distance in all directions between any other groups.”
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said on Wednesday that the county planned to release its own operating guidelines for restaurants, movie theaters, gyms, outdoor live events and theme park reopenings as the county anticipates moving into the less-restrictive “red” tier of California’s reopening blueprint.
The L.A. County press release confirming the decision makes no mention of the other caveat in the state order, but county officials cannot be more lenient than the state, so both should apply.
The state restriction reads as follows: “Capacity must be limited to 25% or 100 people, whichever is less.” Thus, not only is the new L.A. county health order in effect, theaters will also be bound by the limit of 100 people mentioned in the state order.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the loosening of state restrictions earlier Wednesday. But local health officials have the authority to be more restrictive than the state. L.A. health officials have in the past exercised that option. At restaurants, for instance, L.A. officials prohibited TV screens outdoors even though state guidelines permitted it. Ferrer says there’s no definitive answer yet on whether indoor dining will be allowed, despite it being a permitted activity in the “red” tier of the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy.
The morning after his less-than-stellar State of the State speech, Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered some good news to about 15 million Californians. Newsom said the state on Friday will meet its threshold of administering 2 million Covid-19 vaccine doses in low-income, hard-hit communities, triggering a change in the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy that will advance Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties into the “red” tier of that matrix and clear a path for more businesses to reopen. As long as local health officials agree, businesses in those counties will be allowed to open under the less restrictive red tier limits on Saturday. L.A. has been in the most restrictive tier of the governor’s Blueprint since August.
State officials recently announced theme parks would be allowed to reopen on April 1 at 15% of capacity, with in-state visitors only. That timeline is now moved up by about two weeks. Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced on Tuesday that Disneyland would reopen in “late April.”
Outdoor live events like sports and concerts are allowed to reopen at 20% capacity. That includes suites at 25% occupancy per suite and no more than three households gathered in each suite.
On Tuesday, however, two members of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors said they support fully aligning with state guidelines ASAP.
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said earlier this week that it will take 48 hours after the state announces the vaccination threshold is met for the county to officially move into the red tier. If the goal is met by Friday, as Newsom announced, the county would advance by Sunday.
Ferrer warned the board that while case numbers and the testing- positivity rate have declined precipitously in recent weeks, things could easily worsen if residents become lax about infection-control measures.
“This is the month I would say — the month of March, the early part of April — where we have to be extraordinarily cautious,” she said. “Because we’ve been here before. We’ve been here with reopenings. We’ve been here with travel around Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ve seen what happens around holidays if we’re not really careful. … We’ve got to keep everybody alive right now so they can get vaccinated and stay alive. So this would be a time for extreme caution.”
She pointed specifically to the spread of variants of virus that causes Covid-19, which can spread more easily from person to person. Ferrer said the variant first identified in the United Kingdom has been increasing its reach in Los Angeles County, and is now believed to be responsible for 10% of all COVID cases in the county. The so-called West Coast variants are even more prevalent, according to state data.
Update from the state — State’s Department of Public Health spokesperson says in an e-mail that California has “not yet released guidelines that include these groups” when it comes to vaccines. https://t.co/wg9e40FzoF
— Jeong Park (@JeongPark52) March 11, 2021