SAN JOSE — After months of having some of the strictest COVID-19 shutdown rules in the state, Santa Clara County is dropping its go-it-alone approach and moving closer to California’s mainstream, owing to declining virus cases and increasing vaccinations.
Public health officials said they are loosening restrictions on outdoor activities — including youth sports, as previously announced — starting Friday. And when the county moves into the state’s red tier for reopening, which is projected to happen Wednesday, they will allow the return of indoor dining and some gatherings, with capacity and distancing limits.
The anticipated restart of indoor dining — at 25 percent capacity — was welcome news to Kostas Perakis, who runs the family-owned Tasso’s Restaurant and Bar off Southwest Expressway in San Jose.
“We’re going to open and go (back) to the normal life. I love that,” Perakis said Friday.
Like many restaurateurs, Perakis has been trying to keep afloat with takeout and some outdoor dining but said the expense of outdoor tents, heaters and decreased customer traffic still meant business was down as much as 70%. He added there is no way to overstate the difference that indoor dining makes for him.
“People like the security and don’t like to be outside in the cold,” he said.
The changes were announced amid a wider rollout of vaccinations as well as declining case rates and hospitalizations. They also signal a shift with the county aligning closer to the state’s coronavirus guidelines: Critics have railed for months against county leaders and its health officer, Dr. Sara Cody for implementing more stringent rules than other counties.
“With vaccinations now reaching more broadly into the community, including over half of those age 65 and older, we are making significant progress in protecting our most vulnerable community members,” Cody said in a statement. “As things improve, it is still important for everyone to continue to practice basic prevention measures: face coverings, social distancing, and doing as much activity as possible outdoors.”
New guidance from the county on outdoor gatherings requires a person to wear a face covering only if they are within six feet of a person outside their household. In addition, people can now sing at outdoor gatherings without a face covering as long as they remain six feet away from others.
A county statement to this news organization Friday added that officials “determined that the benefits of expanding allowable outdoor activities, where the risk of transmission is much lower, outweigh the risks.”
Most youth sports are also being allowed to resume with the county rescinding its rules in favor of state guidance issued late last week, which allows high-contact outdoor sports to be played in any county with a per capita case rate of fewer than 14 per 100,000 residents. Santa Clara County had announced Monday it would follow the new state rules.
With 5,525 new cases reported Thursday, according to data compiled by this news organization, California’s average over the past week fell to its lowest point since the first week of November, while the number of Californians hospitalized with COVID-19 fell below 6,000 for the first time since prior to Thanksgiving.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday at a news conference in Fresno that the state is now receiving around 1.6 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines each week from the Biden administration, and that 8.24 million shots had been administered in California as of Friday.
He expects vaccination rates to continue ramping up with the anticipated approval of a Johnson and Johnson vaccine that represents new flexibility in vaccinations, given that it only consists of one shot — the current vaccines require two doses spaced between three and four weeks apart — and does not need special refrigeration.
Still, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, continued to push diligence in light of rising national case numbers over the past three days, which have made her wary that the gains in places such as California could stall out if restrictions are eased and new, more contagious virus variants continue to spread.
“We may be done with the virus,” Walensky said at a White House press briefing Friday, “but clearly the virus is not done with us.”
Staff writers Evan Webeck, Laurence Miedema and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
