Revised Bay Area shelter in place orders are coming this week.
The Public Health Officers of six Bay Area counties, Santa Clara County included, along with the City of Berkeley, plan on maintaining the existing restrictions while stretching their time span through the month of May.
Initially, the shelter in place rules were slated to end on May 3. Although the Bay Area has significantly flattened the curve and reduced the spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, reopening the economy and restoring normal modes of activity would most certainly restore the virus’s prior levels of spread and lethality, overwhelming medical resources while costing many lives.
What has to happen before the rules are finally lifted? The counties will weigh in on that this week, as well, though in general new infrastructure and systems must be developed and built so as to ensure we have a health care system that’s able to respond to rampant viral spread.
“This global pandemic of COVID-19 is still in its early stages,” said a joint statement distributed today by Bay Area Health Officers. “The virus spreads easily, testing capacity is limited and expanding slowly, and vaccine development is just beginning. We expect to be responding to COVID-19 in our communities for a long time.”
More to come as the week goes on…
