Three California Counties Want To Exit SoCal's Stay-At-Home Order

VENTURA, CA — The Golden State's regional stay-at-home order lumped three central coast counties in with the Southland. Now, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties are banding together to seek separation from the order, according to a Ventura County news release.

The statement came down Monday, less than 24 hours after the regional order effectively shut down many business sectors across the 11-county region. The three counties wish to exit that region and form a separate Central Coast region.

"A smaller regional approach is important for our community members and struggling businesses. We believe it’s reasonable to have the Central Coast as one region instead of including our County with over half the State’s population in the current Southern California Region," Ventura County Executive Officer Mike Powers said in Monday's statement. “This is a critical time to work together to bring the numbers down, save lives and save businesses."

The three counties announced Monday that a unified request would be submitted to the state asking exit the Southland region if the tri-county intensive care unit capacity surpasses 15 percent over the next three weeks.

The Southern California region includes more than 23.1 million people, and a smaller Central Coast Region would include some 1.5 million residents, the release states.

For at least the next three weeks, the stay-at-home order is set to remain and could be extended if the region's ICU capacity hasn't dropped below 15 percent, a metric that triggered the order.

"The high prevalence of disease in the large southern California counties could prevent the three counties from exiting the Regional Stay At Home Order under the current Southern California Regional approach," officials wrote in the statement. "Being kept in the Southern California Region any longer could cause preventable educational and economic hardships to communities in the Central Coast Region."

As of Tuesday, the Southern California region had a 10.1% ICU capacity remaining, Dr. Mark Ghaly, California health secretary, announced during a news conference.

"At the moment we don't have an intention to make a change to the regions," Ghaly said, adding "...the two regions that are under the regional stay-at-home order in some ways it really does represent the southern half of the state even though it's the more populous part of the state."

"So even if we delineated different boundaries for the regions in Southern California," Ghaly continued, "I believe that we would still see a significant part of existing region under the existing stay-at-home order."

Ghaly repeatedly maintained that the regional stay-at-home order was the right decision and presented examples of how other orders worked in Europe.

In Belgium, Ghaly said, a nationwide curfew resulted in a posivity rate that fell from 21 percent to 8 percent in three weeks.

"We know that it works," Ghaly said. "We know we can bring transmission rates down."

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