Personal grooming and in-person dining can resume in L.A. County.
Today L.A. County was approved for regional variance allowing salons, barbershops to reopen and restaurants to open for in-person dining. The order will go into effect as soon as county safety protocols are released and businesses are able to meet those directives, county public health director Barbara Ferrer said.
Those details are yet to be released, but the state has, however, released guidelines for salon and restaurant owners. These measures include limiting capacity, implementing routine employee health checks, removal of shared items such as magazines and menus, frequent disinfecting of shared items, hand-sanitation protocols, use of protective wear including face shields and glasses.
The regional variance criteria are as follows:
Stable or down trending hospitalizations
- Stable hospitalizations of COVID individuals on a 7-day average of daily percent change of less than 5% OR no more than 20 COVID hospitalizations on any single day in the past 14 days
Cases per population count and test positivity rate
- Less than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past 14 days OR less than 8% testing positive in the past 7 days
While Los Angeles remains the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in California, with more than 2,200 deaths—half of which were in L.A. County—the relevant numbers are down. Hospitalizations are down and deaths are down, cases have gone up but this is likely a result of increased testing.
“We feel very confident, and we feel very confident because all of the work everybody has already done to get us here,” Ferrer said.
“We do have to all go carefully, and by that I mean we all have to be diligent about doing whatever we can do to protect each other. But yes, I feel confident we’re moving forward in a manner that’s very respectful of the resources we have here and the need, in fact, for us to be on a reopening, safer-in-the-community-safer-at-work journey, but we have to be on this journey together,” she added.
The news follows a week of a number reopens of reopenings, such as churches, pools, Runyon Canyon, drive-in theatres and in-store shopping.