Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that he is ordering indoor restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, movie theaters, zoos, museums, and bars to close in Santa Barbara County and 18 other counties as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations increase across California.
Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg has already ordered bars to close, effective Wednesday, following Newsom’s earlier recommendation.
He issued a health officer order on Thursday, effective at 5 p.m., which mandates the closure of bars, breweries, pubs, brewpubs, movie theaters, and indoor operations of restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, zoos, museums, and family entertainment centers.
“Emergency permits for food service will no longer be allowed in any of the listed sectors,” public health officials said Wednesday, which presumably means indoor wineries and breweries that were able to stay open under previous orders by serving food will not be able to do so this time.
The closures are expected to stay in place for at least three weeks, according to the Public Health Department.
“We advise local businesses to prepare for these newly announced closures,” Ansorg said in a statement. “We know that indoor settings with close crowds, as typically seen on holiday weekends, can create an unfavorable environment for the transmission of this virus. Please limit your exposure to people outside your home and wear your face covering when needed.”
Santa Barbara is one of 19 counties on the state’s so-called watchlist for not meeting specific metrics regarding testing, new cases, hospitalization increases, and hospital capacity for COVID-19. Neighboring Ventura County is also on the watchlist, but San Luis Obispo County is not.
The state order goes into effect immediately, and will last for at least three weeks, according to Newsom’s office.
The move comes right before the Fourth of July holiday weekend, when public health and local officials are concerned about crowds, family gatherings, and an overall increase in activity causing an increase in novel coronavirus transmission.
Ventura and Los Angeles counties both closed beaches for the upcoming weekend, but Santa Barbara County’s shorelines will be open to the public. The city of Santa Barbara is closing all beach parking lots Friday through Sunday, and state beaches will be closing parking lots for the weekend.
Ansorg and other public health officials have said recent transmissions have frequently been tied to people catching the virus at home or at work.
County officials also said last week that local testing sites have been overwhelmed by demand after they asked even asymptomatic people to get tested, and now want people only to book appointments if they have symptoms, have had close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, or have been advised by a medical professional to get tested.
Test results are also reportedly taking longer than usual, up to five days in some cases.
Santa Barbara County reported 268 news cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, but that included the total from past two days, plus 113 cases from previous weeks that were delayed in reporting.
Of those, 156 were in the city of Santa Maria and 35 were in Santa Barbara.
There were 64 confirmed COVID-19 patients in local hospitals as of Wednesday, including 20 people in intensive care units.
That represents a large increase from April and May, when the number of patients hovered around 40, but public health officials say the healthcare system can manage the additional patients.
The county’s surge capacity plan from April indicates hundreds of hospital beds, and dozens of ICU beds, are still available.
There has been a 47-percent increase in COVID-19 patients in intensive care units statewide over the past two weeks, Newsom said, adding that there is plenty of capacity in hospital systems.
Some areas have been overwhelmed, however, and about 500 hospital patients have been transferred out of Imperial County facilities over the past two weeks, according to Newsom.
“We were able to bend the curve before in California and we’re going to bend the curve again,” he said.
Newsom said the initial focus with the new closure order will be education, but there will be multi-agency “strike teams” to handle enforcement, targeting non-compliant workplaces.
CalOSHA, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, as well as industry-specific licensing boards, will work with local public health departments and businesses, he said.
“One should not have to put their life at risk to go to work as an essential worker,” Newsom said.
Statewide, there has been a substantial increase in testing and an increase in the positivity rate, which is the percentage of tested people who have positive results.
It has increased to 6 percent, from 4.6 percent two weeks ago, he said Wednesday.
The percentage of patients testing positive is increasing locally, too.
Sansum Clinic has been testing patients at its urgent care clinic and in car-based appointments, and has also reported higher positivity rates in the last two weeks.
“The numbers show that the increase is not just because more patients are being tested,” said Dr. Kurt Ransohoff, CEO and Chief Medical Officer, in a statement Wednesday.
“More patients are being tested, and of those, more patients are testing positive. We had 5 percent of tests positive the week ending June 21 and 9.34 percent of tests positive the week ending June 28. In the last three weeks, the rate of positives has nearly doubled week by week.”
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
