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Indoor salons, barbershops and malls may reopen Monday in Sonoma County

Published  August 30, 2020 10:22pm PDT
Sonoma County
Bay City News

Sonoma County barbershops, hair salons and malls will be allowed to resume indoor operations with modifications on Monday, officials announced.

The reopenings are in line revised health orders issued Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom and confirmed by Sonoma County Public Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase.

The state's new "Blueprint for a Safer Economy," ranks each California county using colored tiers based on the prevalence of COVID-19 and the rate of community spread there. The tiers are Purple (Widespread), Red (Substantial), Orange (Moderate) and Yellow (Minimal). 

Sonoma County is one of 38 counties in the purple tier.

The four-tiered structure is used to determine how California's 58 counties are faring in slowing the spread of novel coronavirus and which businesses and activities will be allowed.

It replaces a July order by the state that placed Sonoma County on the state monitoring list and prohibited activities such as indoor operations at restaurants, gyms and museums. Those restrictions will continue with the exception of barber shops, hair salons and malls, which must follow detailed modifications for reopening.

Modifications include not allowing malls to open food courts or common areas and limiting capacity to 25% of normal operations.

"We feel comfortable in opening up this sector of our economy asthe data show we've had only a handful of cases from indoor salons," said Mase. "But we still have a ways to go before we will be able to move to the next tier and allow more activities to reopen under the state's blueprint."

The state's new framework focuses primarily on a county's numberof new cases per 100,000 residents per day (based on a seven-day average with seven-day lag) and the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests.

Counties must remain in each tier for a minimum of 21 days before they are eligible to move to the next level. 

Residents can visit covid19.ca.gov to track where Sonoma Countyand other counties stand and what activities are allowed.