Statewide “Regional Stay at Home Order” Lifted

STATEWIDE “REGIONAL STAY AT HOME ORDER” LIFTED

January 25 CDPH Press Release

“SACRAMENTO – Officials with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) today ended the Regional Stay at Home Order, lifting the order for all regions statewide, including the three regions that had still been under the order – San Joaquin Valley, Bay Area and Southern California. Four-week ICU capacity projections for these three regions are above 15%, the threshold that allows regions to exit the order. The Sacramento Region exited the order on January 12 and the Northern California region never entered the order.

This action allows all counties statewide to return to the rules and framework of the Blueprint for a Safer Economy and color-coded tiers that indicate which activities and businesses are open based on local case rates and test positivity. The majority of the counties are in the strictest, or purple tier. Tier updates are provided weekly on Tuesdays. Individual counties could choose to impose stricter rules.

"Californians heard the urgent message to stay home as much as possible and accepted that challenge to slow the surge and save lives," said Dr. Tomás Aragón, CDPH director and state public health officer. "Together, we changed our activities knowing our short-term sacrifices would lead to longer-term gains. COVID-19 is still here and still deadly, so our work is not over, but it's important to recognize our collective actions saved lives and we are turning a critical corner."

While there are positive signs that the virus is spreading at a slower rate across the state, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. It is still critical that Californians continue to wear masks when they leave their homes, maintain physical distance of at least 6 feet, wash their hands frequently, avoid gatherings and mixing with other households, follow all state and local health department guidance and get the vaccine when it's their turn.

"California is slowly starting to emerge from the most dangerous surge of this pandemic yet, which is the light at the end of the tunnel we've been hoping for," said California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly. "Seven weeks ago, our hospitals and front-line medical workers were stretched to their limits, but Californians heard the urgent message to stay home when possible and our surge after the December holidays did not overwhelm the health care system to the degree we had feared."

Nearly all the counties exiting the Regional Stay at Home Order today are in the Purple or widespread (most restrictive) tier. Services and activities, such as outdoor dining and personal services, may resume immediately with required modifications, subject to any additional restrictions required by local jurisdictions. See the county map to find the status of activities open in each county.

Because case rates remain high across most of the state, the state's Hospital Surge Order remains in place to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. The Limited Stay at Home Order, which limits non-essential activities between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., expires with the Regional Stay At Home Order ending.”

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What this will precisely mean in the state’s individual counties will vary by county. In counties such as San Diego, which long ago eliminated its golf specific and separate order in favor of permitting golf per applicable state orders, today’s action likely presages relaxations. In counties such as Los Angeles, which determined to hew to an early December separate Golf Appendix, today’s action will not mean much unless and until that county amends its golf specific order; however, it does likely presage a much earlier determination to do precisely that than we had been anticipating just a week ago. Common sense particulars such as simple “group play” and practice putting greens may be coming back sooner than we think, and forms of junior group instruction, which are permitted today under LA County’s Golf Appendix but prohibited by both the City and County of Los Angeles Park Departments out of an abundance of caution, may be coming back sooner than we had anticipated as well.

We will be tracking all of this by county very closely in the coming days and report back what we learn when we learn it. Suffice it to conclude for now that today’s action, stimulated by an anticipated Christmas/New Year surge that never happened for reasons we’ll leave to the epidemiologists to determine and the rollout of vaccines, is indicative of a positive trajectory regarding hopes for an earlier than later return to some semblance of normality – still a way off but closer perhaps than we had concluded at the turn of the year.

In addition to tracking all of this we’ll also begin to again focus on the myriad other intersections of public policy and public opinion that directly affect the game and industry of golf. There are many. Indeed, the feature of golf that has made it so uniquely suited and successful during a pandemic is the precise feature that is the game’s Achilles Heel in terms of its capacity for long-term sustainability. More about that sooner than later too.