California Extends Coronavirus Restrictions

at home orders have been extended indefinitely. Colleen Shallby, reporter at the l A Times, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Colleen. As a lot of states around the country are starting to reopen, there's a lot of signs that the coronavirus restrictions are here for the long haul. In California, we were the first state to close, and it seems like we could be one of the last

to reopen fully. Earlier this week, there was headlines all over the place from Barbara Ferrare saying basically that stay at home orders would extend, possibly through July. And you know, everybody caused a big ruckus on that the California State University System isn't going to do any in person classes in the false semester. There's just so much going on that seems like these restrictions are going to stay with us for some time. Colleen tell us a little bit

about it. California has been taking a pretty cautious approach. But I think what's really interesting is that we are seeing varying responses at the county by county level. So a handful of counties that are growing are easying up restrictions.

Some restaurants are allowing you for dying in right now, versus other counties like l A County, which is the most populous in the state that's still being hit hardest by the amount of infections and the death toll, is keeping restrictions loosening some while still trying to do it in the most cautious way, I think, to prevent a resurgence and outbreak. And that's kind of where some of

the mixed messaging is. We have the governor has their own set of guidelines and this phase real being that we're going through, and you drill it down and we're talking about like l A County, as you mentioned, they're not hitting any of those guidelines just yet. They haven't met any of those thresholds to reopen stuff yet, So we might see some reopening and some parts of the state,

other parts maybe not. So you know, Newsom when he initially revealed this order basically had kind of clear guidelines for what the counties needed to follow, and at the time a lot of counties went beyond the order and have since started to kind of dial back. And now that Newsom is lifting restrictions even further, you've got some counties that are allowed to continue on and to kind

of loosen things in a much broader way. And then you have l A County and many of the San Francisco Bay area counties that are not totally eased up, even though the state technically is allowing it, although Newsom has said that so many of the allowances are not for the counties that are still being pretty significantly hit. So in that regards, in l A County, we've got retail businesses that are opening for curbside pickup. We've got

beaches that are reopening, but only for active recreations. You can't sun babe, can't sit on the beach. You've got trails that are reopening, but groups are still not allowed. So they're really trying to reopen the economy slowly and in this way, knowing that people are being pretty hurt.

Businesses are occurring right now, but while doing it in this very cautious way, I think, because there's this real possibility that if they go too quickly, since we haven't seen a study decline over fourteen days, that things could spike back up. Let's focus a little bit on l

A County. As I mentioned earlier, the county Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrare said that, uh, you know, she told the Board of Supervisors that they would have to extend the safer at home orders that we're supposed to expire on the fifteen, and then she caused a fur when she said, Hey, this is gonna be going on

for another few months or indefinitely. We're gonna have to practice this, and as I mentioned, it causes big confusion because we are starting to reopen certain aspects of it, and you know, everybody's eyes just kind of when they started hearing that, they're like, oh, no, we're in for three more months of this. But that's just kind of the reality that since Los Angeles County is one of the bigger hotspots for the state, they have to take

a more cautious approach. Barbara fe Rare commented further on this yesterday joined the l A County briefing, saying that there's no end date to the health officer order, which, as you mentioned, it expires tomorrow, but it's since been extended. And really what's happening now is that we're being told that small gatherings are still not allowed, you know, events are still not allowed, but there are these flight modifications

that we're going to continue to see. So while you could go to your favorite bookstore if it has not reopened for curbside pickup, you still can't go inside. While you could get take out from your favorite restaurant that might have been recently closed, you still can't go in for dining. And that's different from some of other counties which have not been as impacted and are loosening us a bit further compared to what's going on here in

l A County, and you down even further. L A Mayor Eric Garcetti just put the new rules out there that every resident is required to wear a face covering just when you leave your home. So any retail business, exercising your neighborhood, writing on any public transportation, you need some type of face covering. And that's a bit of a change in the language from what the county officials

have said. Even today, Barbara Ferrara said that all residents need to have a face mask on them at all times, but she seemed to imply that if you're doing solitary activity like you're going for a run, you perhaps you do not need to wear that face mask. But that, again is a little bit of a confusion in the language, even from officials from the city versus officials at the county level. So I think things keep changing day by day, and the messaging keeps changing, and I think everyone is

trying to keep up. But there's definitely a very cautious approach here, and that's where a lot of frustrations set in. You know, there is no streamlined thing. You're hearing something here, you're hearing something there, and we're getting protest people demanding to have things rehopen. There's a certain sense of fatigue and frustration that sets in with all of this in California. Though, how many counties are we looking at that have met

some of these thresholds to reopen. I know it's only a handful of them, but what are we looking at there? So there's been at least twelve counties that have reopened, I mean to be except that they're allowed to working with Newsom's office, and there's at least thirty others that are trying to work with Newsom to figure out how they can go about doing that. So there's quite a few, and it's expanding that will reopen over the coming days

or weeks. But l A County and some of the San Francisco Bay counties are the ones that are kind of been instructed that they can't go too far just yet. And I think that beast could be even more confusing where you've got one county that's maybe more fully reopened, and you have people that either work there or live elsewhere or travel to and from that might not know

the rule of a different county. So I think now what's going to happen is that everyone and just needs to pay attention to us clean on throughout the state if they have any intention of going outside of their boundaries exactly, or the people that want to get out, they'll hop over to another county just to enjoy something

that's open and then go back home. There is gonna be a lot of confusion coming up and everything shut down so quickly, but this reopening is gonna be very slow and gradual, and a lot of these restrictions are going to be in place for some time to come. Colleen shall be reporter at the l A Times. Thank you very much for joining us, Thank you for having me. I'm Oscar Emiris and this has been your daily coronavirus update.

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