By Ella Scott-Wallace
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday that California will begin moving into phase two of stay-at-home guidelines on Friday, May 8.
“On Thursday the seventh, we will put out the guidelines. If the guidelines are met and modifications are made, then people can start reopening with those modifications in these particular sectors as early as Friday,” said Newsom.
Under this phase, lower risk workplaces, such as the retail sector, will be able to reopen for pickup with compliance to safety guidelines and modifications. Logistics and manufacturing related to retail will also move into phase two.
“As early as the end of this week, you will have the capacity as a retailer with the modifications and the guidelines we set forth on Thursday to begin to reopen for pickup clothing, bookstores, music, toys, sporting goods stores, florists with Mother’s Day coming up,” said Newsom.
Phase two does not include offices, seated dining in restaurants or shopping malls.
Based on varying conditions across the state, local regions and counties will have the opportunity to progress further into phase two if they meet criteria based on their capacity on testing, tracing, physical distancing and protecting vulnerable residents.
“This is a very positive sign and it’s happened only for one reason: the data says it can happen,” said Newsom. “But we recognize as we begin to modify, behavior is modified and possible community spread may occur.”
To help increase California’s capacity to control and trace the spread of COVID-19, Newsom announced a partnership with University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to create a virtual academy designed to recruit and train contact tracers who will support the existing workforce.
“It will be high quality and free training, not only to the individuals, but also available to all health departments free of charge,” said Dr. Sonia Angell, Director of CA Dept. of Public Health. “So this is something that is a service to our state across any county and will be available there to make sure that every county can build up the resource that it needs to make sure it protects [its] community.”
California currently has 18.2 million surgical masks, 5.8 million face shields and 7.2 million gloves which are being distributed to health facilities around the state.
According to Newsom, as of May 4, California has 54,937 confirmed cases of COVID-19, a 2.5% increase from May 3. Of these cases, 3,284 are in hospitals, a 1.0% decrease, and 1,179 are in the ICU, a 0.9% increase.
“CA is flattening the curve–but we must continue to take this seriously and allow our reopening to be guided by data and science,” said Newsom.
