The Bay Area’s unified commitment to strict limits on public life, imposed to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus, fractured this week as officials in three counties announced plans to reopen certain shuttered businesses, while others said the illness remains too great of a threat to loosen shelter-in-place orders.
San Mateo County leaders became the first to break away from Bay Area-wide shelter orders Wednesday, saying they instead will follow less strict state rules that allow some businesses to open next week, including offices and strip malls with curbside pickup. Later Wednesday, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a similar plan allowing most retail stores to open for curbside sales Monday.
Meanwhile, Alameda County officials blinked in their standoff with Tesla CEO Elon Musk over the reopening of the company’s Fremont factory, allowing the automaker to ramp up operations this week as the county indicated that a broader easing of restrictions could begin soon.
In Santa Clara County, however, public health director Sara Cody said she planned to stick with tight shelter-in-place directives, going beyond the mandates that California Gov. Gavin Newsom has outlined. And officials in Contra Costa County have not announced any plans to change their public health orders, saying shortages of coronavirus tests and protective equipment for health care and other essential workers mean that the county must keep restrictions in place.
Until now, Bay Area leaders had presented a unified front when it came to imposing rules to contain the threat of the coronavirus — a joint effort that began when they introduced the nation’s first coronavirus lockdown orders in mid-March and continued with a second round of revised shelter-in-place orders issued last month. Even as much of the country, and most of California, began to reopen, those orders had been set to remain in place until the end of May.
But pressure has been mounting for weeks from restless businesses, residents and politicians eager to resume their pre-pandemic lives.
According to data compiled by this news organization, public health officials across California recorded 2,060 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday and 93 deaths from COVID-19, bringing the total to 72,971 confirmed cases and 2,967 deaths.
Even those Bay Area health officials who will allow more business activity to reopen next week acknowledge that the virus remains a threat to their communities and that its spread could be exacerbated by easing restrictions.
“I want to remind everyone these modifications are not being made because it is safe to be out and about,” San Mateo County Health Officer Dr. Scott Morrow said in a statement Wednesday announcing the county’s revised order. “The virus continues to circulate in our community, and this increase in interactions among people is likely to spread the virus at a higher rate.”
The shift toward a more uneven regional reopening could be a problem as more people go back to work in the Bay Area, where commuting workers and students regularly crossed county lines before the lockdown.
While not directly addressing the new plans in the Bay Area, Gov. Newsom said at his daily news conference Wednesday that “common sense dictates” the state take a more regional approach to easing shelter-in-place restrictions.
“Going in and out of the counties would defeat the point of having county variations,” Newsom said. “This is the big challenge — you open up a dense urban environment right next to a community that is not open, people start rushing into that dense urban environment and coming back into their community.”
San Mateo County’s revised order, which goes into effect Monday, follows guidance from Newsom that allows for strip and outlet malls to open for curbside pickup. Car washing, pet grooming and landscaping businesses are also free to open, along with outdoor museums and nonessential offices for businesses whose employees cannot telework.
In Alameda County, officials struck a deal with Tesla allowing the company to reopen legally after the electric car maker began calling workers back to its Fremont factory in defiance of the local health order. The agreement could pave the way for Tesla to fully reopen next week, and county leaders hinted they may ease restrictions on other businesses as well.
“Provided that the data show progress with our COVID-19 indicators during this two week period, we would allow additional approved activities for local businesses, including Tesla, as previously planned,” Alameda county officials said in a statement Tuesday night.
Contra Costa County officials have begun releasing new guidelines for certain types of socially distanced “drive-in” events such as graduations. But before the county eases restrictions more broadly, it must dramatically increase its daily coronavirus testing, to 2,200 tests per day, up from just 552 conducted Monday, Health Services Department Director Anna Roth said.
Roth also said the county is still ramping up efforts to do contact tracing, with the goal of reaching at least 90 percent of cases and identifying 90 percent of their contacts — and then ensuring 90 percent of those cases and contacts isolate themselves safely.
“We’re not there yet but plan to scale up to do that,” she said.
Cody has been widely lauded for leading the charge to shut down Bay Area schools and businesses two months ago, a decision some researchers have credited with saving thousands of lives in the region. This week, she argued those restrictions need to stay in place because the region is faced with “exactly the same conditions” it saw in March, with no vaccine for coronavirus or widespread immunity to the deadly illness.
County supervisors have warned that frustration and impatience with stay-at-home orders are mounting with each passing day — particularly as surrounding areas loosen restrictions.
“Waning support” for the directive could quickly upend its effectiveness, Supervisor Joe Simitian said Tuesday.
“If we have 10, 20, 30 percent of folks out there not in compliance by virtue of their waning confidence in the directives, we’re going to have a problem on our hands,” he said.
