Riverside County Ordered To Move Businesses, Services Outdoors

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — With its rising number of coronavirus infections, deaths and hospitalizations, Riverside County was ordered by the state on Monday to close indoor operations at gyms; hair, nail, and other personal-care salons; tattoo parlors; houses of worship; malls; and non-critical office settings.

The businesses may remain open, but only if they can be modified to operate outside or by pick-up, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who announced the order during a news briefing.

Indoor protests are also prohibited, but any such outdoor activities are still allowed, according to the governor.

The order affects 30 counties on the state's COVID-19 watch list — including all the Southern California counties: Riverside, Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura.

Other counties on the list are Colusa, Contra Costa, Fresno, Glenn, Kern, Kings, Madera, Marin, Merced, Monterey, Napa, Placer, Sacramento, San Benito, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tulare, Yolo, and Yuba.

Last week in Riverside County, records for one-day reported COVID-19 increases were set three times. Over the weekend, another 983 cases were reported, bringing the total to 25,748. Of that total, 9,711 people have recovered from the virus.

The weekend number is low compared to last week's dramatic increases. County spokesperson Brooke Federico explained that commercial laboratories — primarily under the LabCorp umbrella, where most of the county's tests are processed — are lagging in reporting results, so the weekend statistic is likely short of the real number.

“As we struggle with national laboratory issues artificially depressing new case counts, people need to realize we’re far from being out of the woods,” said Dr. Cameron Kaiser, Riverside County public health officer. "Summer heat isn’t stopping COVID-19 ... . We need to reduce the impact on our hospitals by reducing transmission, and as long as the numbers keep rising, the state’s need to reimpose restrictions will keep rising too.”

Deaths reported over the weekend in Riverside County increased by 13 to 550 countywide.

While the overall number of hospitalized patients decreased by 15 to 511, the figure includes 139 people in ICU, which represents an increase of 23 patients since Friday’s reporting.

COVID-19 testing stands at 289,362 countywide — an increase of 12,728 since Friday.

Statewide, there have been record numbers of infections in recent days, along with increasing hospitalizations. As of Monday, Newsom said 6,485 were hospitalized across the state due to the coronavirus. The seven-day rolling average of people testing positive for the virus was 7.7%.

Riverside County’s seven-day rolling average — known as positivity rate —has been hovering just under 16%.

While Riverside and other watch-list counties had previously been ordered to close bars as well as indoor operations at restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, zoos, aquariums, family entertainment centers and card rooms, on Monday the order was extended statewide.

Newsom reiterated that the state's enactment of health-restrictions was being handled with a "dimmer switch," meaning the severity of the orders can be adjusted upward or downward based on the latest virus statistics and "trendlines."

"This virus is not going away anytime soon," the governor said. "I hope all of us recognize that if we were still connected to some notion that somehow when it gets warm it's going to go away or somehow it's going to take summer months or weekends off, this virus has done neither. You've seen parts of the country with very hot ... weather where you're seeing an increase in positivity rates, an increase in hospitalizations and ICUs. Here in the state of California as we're seeing triple-digit weather in many parts of our state, we're still seeing an increase in the positivity rate, the community transmission. We're seeing an increase in the spread of the virus."

Earlier Monday, the state’s two biggest school districts — Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified — announced they would not reopen campuses at the start of the school year due to COVID-19 concerns, and would instead continue with distance learning.

In Riverside County, school districts are still in the process of working through issues associated with reopening classrooms at the start of the 2020-21 school year on Aug. 12. Although several learning models have been discussed, districts are not ready to make firm commitments given the changing COVID-19 situation.

Related: Youth Team Sports: Practice, Drills Condemned In Riverside County

—City News Service contributed to this report.