Bay Area counties adopt Governor’s regional Stay Home order early

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At a joint press conference today, December 4, 2020, Health Officers for the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, and Santa Clara as well as the City of Berkeley announced that they are adopting the Governor’s Regional Stay Home Order ahead of schedule. While the Bay Area region is estimated to reach the 15% Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity later in December than all other regions in the state, these specific Health Directors stated that they think now is the time to act.

Contra Costa, San Francisco, Santa Clara and the City of Berkeley will implement the Regional Stay Home Order on Sunday, December 6, 2020. It will take effect on Monday, December 7, 2020 in the rest of Alameda County. Marin will implement the Order on Tuesday, December 8, 2020. All of the Orders will remain in place at least until January 4, 2021.

Notably, not all counties within the Bay Area Region defined in the Governor’s Order are voluntarily adopting these restrictions early. Monterey, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Solano, and Sonoma did not join in the announcement and for now will not implement the Governor’s Order.

As a reminder, dealerships in the affected counties and city should limit capacity in their sales facilities to 20% on the date when the Order is effective in their jurisdiction, unless they are subject to more stringent restrictions. The Order also requires that capacity be strictly metered. Dealerships should interpret this to mean that a person on staff be tasked with monitoring and enforcing the capacity limit within the sales facility at all times.

Santa Clara County Updated Mandatory Directives

The County of Santa Clara issued new Mandatory Directives limiting capacity in indoor facilities to 10%. These restrictions override the adoption of the 20% retail limits. Notably this order appears to apply equally to retail and other indoor public facilities, such as vehicle service. In addition, the Directives require that people who travel 150 miles from the county quarantine for 14 days upon their return to the county.