Riverside County Poised To Reopen More Businesses

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — Shortly after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday he has modified the criteria for allowing most counties to further reopen industry sectors at a faster pace amid coronavirus, Riverside County Board Chair V. Manuel Perez said he believes the county will meet the state's new benchmarks.

The governor announced modifications to the COVID-19 death and caseload criteria. Instead of focusing on death rates, the governor is now looking at hospitalizations. The new criteria requires counties to have no greater than a 5% increase in hospitalizations over the last seven days, or no more than 20 people hospitalized over the last 14 days.

Although COVID-19 data has not been updated since Friday afternoon in Riverside County, hospitalizations have been decreasing in the region.

As for COVID-19 cases, the state's updated criteria requires no more than 25 new cases over a 14-day period, or a test positivity rate of less than 8%. As of Friday, the county's positivity rate was just under 7%.

The county board of supervisors has maintained it can meet all of the state's remaining criteria for reopening as part of the governor's phase 2 regional variance program. In a May 14 letter and "attestation" to the governor and state officials, Riverside County supervisors said the county has the ability to "meet, exceed or plan to achieve" all but one of the criteria required to accelerate through the state's current phase 2 reopening of the economy. The only benchmark the county could not meet was the death and caseload criteria, which the governor revised Monday.

Other state criteria the county said it is already meeting include protecting essential workers and vulnerable populations, testing, expanding contact tracing, providing for surge capacity in local hospitals, and identifying triggers for modifications if a COVID-19 surge occurs.

“This is hopeful and positive news for local businesses in Riverside County, Southern California and across our great state," Perez said of Newsom's update. "The governor listened to the input received by our counties.

“Riverside County is keeping its foot on the pedal and doing everything we possibly can to suppress the coronavirus and move the economy forward. This is an effort that has balance," Perez continued. "It is going to be very important that we continue to work with our state partners as we move towards getting more sectors of the economy safely reopened."

If the county gets a green light to move deeper into a phase 2 reopening, it could mean dine-in restaurants and shopping centers would be welcoming customers inside their businesses.

Salons are still a few "weeks" away from reopening and sports venues may be resuming as early as the first week of June, but without spectators and with safety measures in place, the governor said.

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