The lockdown is over.
Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to announce a formal end to the latest statewide stay-at-home order — and a possible return to outdoor dining — in a press conference at noon today.
The state’s 58 counties will return to the previous color-coded, multi-tiered system for determining the severity of restrictions during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
While government officials have yet to make an announcement, it’s likely that on-site, outdoor dining will immediately return for most — if not all — of the 11-county Southern California region.
Last night, the California Restaurant Association sent an email out to members that reads in part: “Senior officials in the Newsom administration informed us that the Governor will announce tomorrow that the stay-at-home order will be lifted in all regions of the state.”
“We see promising signs that California is slowly emerging from the most intense stage of this pandemic. We continue to look at what that means for the Regional Stay at Home order and anticipate that the state Department of Public Health will provide a formal update tomorrow morning,” said Brian Ferguson, the Deputy Director for Crisis Communication & Public Affairs from the Governor’s Office.
Hospitalizations and newly confirmed cases have been falling in California, and health officials are growing more optimistic that the worst of the latest surge is over. The number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 has slipped below 19,000 statewide, a drop of more than 10% in two weeks.
Los Angeles County specifically may not return to on-site outdoor dining today, even if nearby areas like Orange, Ventura, and Riverside counties do, because of the Board of Supervisors decision to close outdoor dining in late November 2020.
That contentious 3-2 vote by the supervisors, and the subsequent modification of the public health order by the LA Department of Public Health, became the subject of a lawsuit that is still winding its way through the local courts, with another hearing slated for February.
The county’s case for keeping outdoor dining closed was originally overturned by a judge who called the decision “arbitrary,” but was later upheld on appeal.
