SF to allow outdoor dining, nail and hair salons, low contact youth sports
SAN FRANCISCO - Now that there is no longer a stay-at-home order in California, cities like San Francisco will slowly begin to reopen.
Mayor London Breed says she expects to hear her city will be assigned the purple tier, the strictest one.
Effective Thursday, outdoor dining will return, personal services like nail and hair salons can reopen. with some restrictions and low-contact youth sports can resume.
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Monica Gandhi said the state's decision to remove the stay at home order makes sense.
"The outdoors is as safe as you can get," she said. "In fact, thats so much more safer than indoors, so let's not from now on close outdoor activities, outdoor playgrounds, outdoor hikes, or even eating outside. That, in the name of harm reduction, is so much better than being inside."
Gandhi has concerns about whether closing outdoor dining contributed to COVID-19 surges in the Bay Area, arguing people would gather anyway and would be encouraged to gather indoors privately if they did not have an option to gather outdoors.
Laurie Thomas, executive director for the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, provided KTVU with a statement regarding the reopenings:
"We are cautiously optimistic this is a huge step forward for the San Francisco restaurant community and the city at large. We urge our members and San Francisco residents to follow these regulations that will allow this reopening to be permanent, as any additional closures will have drastic economic consequences, including temporary and permanent closures. Outdoor dining will not let us bring all our employees back, and doesn’t solve all the financial stress, so while we are grateful to have reached this next step on the road to reopening, we continue to strongly advocate for additional federal, state and city financial aid."
The city's director of public health said it's a step forward but the pandemic is still far from over.
"We've been in this for a year by now, it is time for us to take this approach of gradually reopening," Dr. Grant Colfax said on Monday. "We're opening the low-risk activities right now, let's see where we are, all do the right thing, so we can get to that next step and open up more."
Colfax said the city is keeping an eye on the many variants of the virus, reminding the public to continue social distancing, wearing masks and practicing good hygiene.