California to lift stay-at-home orders on Monday

January 25, 2021

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to lift stay-at-home orders across the state on Monday, the California Restaurant Association (CRA) announced.

Senior officials in Newsom’s administration informed the CRA late Sunday evening that Newsom plans to lift the stay-at-home order in all of California’s regions on Monday, according to a letter the CRA sent to its members. Under the stay-at-home order, restaurants were barred from serving customers both inside and outside.

“A formal announcement is expected tomorrow and we will send you further information as soon as it’s available,” The CRA stated in its letter. “For now, we thought you’d like to know this good news.”

Currently, the Southern California region, to which San Luis Obispo County belongs, along with the Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley regions are under stay-at-home orders. The Northern California and Greater Sacramento regions are not under lockdown orders.

Since ordering new coronavirus rules in early December, Newsom has allowed regions to emerge from the stay-at-home orders if his office projects that in four weeks their ICU capacity will rise above 15 percent. It is unclear what criteria may be factoring into a potential decision to lift the remaining lockdown orders.

In the aftermath of Newsom’s recent decision to lift the Greater Sacramento region’s stay-at-home order, state officials created controversy when they refused to disclose how they project whether a region’s ICU capacity will rise above 15 percent. When questioned about how they make the projections, state health officials said they rely on a complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if disclosed.