Alameda County Considers Adopting Stay-At-Home Order Early

ALAMEDA COUNTY, CA — Hours after California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled plans for a regional stay-at-home order — the strictest since this spring— Alameda County officials announced they might consider breaking from the Bay Area region and enacting the stay-at-home order early if the local COVID-19 situation worsens.

The state's stay-at-home order will be rolled out in five regions of California, where a region has less than 15 percent intensive care unit capacity. Those five regions include the San Francisco Bay Area, Greater Sacramento, Northern California, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

While the other four regions are expected to fall below 15 percent ICU capacity this week, the Bay Area is currently projected to hit the threshold by mid- to late-December.

Alameda County's ICU capacity was at 33 percent as of Wednesday, the most recent day for which statistics were readily available as of this writing. About 39 percent of hospital beds were open, while 71 percent of the county's ventilators remain available.

Alameda County Health Care Services Agency officials expressed concern about "protect[ing] ICU bed availability and sav[ing] lives" if those numbers worsen, according to a statement.

The stay-at-home order would be enacted for a minimum of three weeks, at which time state public health officials would analyze ICU capacity projections for a month in advance before determining whether a county should no longer be subject to the stay-at-home order. Though regions will enter the stay-at-home order together, counties will exit individually and return to the state's four-tiered, color-coded COVID-19 risk assessment system.

Alameda County is currently in the most-restrictive purple tier of that system.

The stay-at-home order calls for the closure of dining, hair salons and barbershops, personal care services, bars and wineries. Retail stores can only accept customers at 20 percent capacity, and restaurants may remain open for take-out and delivery.

Schools that have already received permission to open may remain open. Critical infrastructure may also remain open.

Read: CA Expects To Close Dining, Hair Salons, Bars And More This Week

California officials do not expect to enact such dramatic restrictions again.

"This is not a permanent state. This is what many had projected — we had predicted the final surge in this pandemic," Newsom said. "There is light at the end of the tunnel."

COVID-19 cases continue to climb in Alameda County and across the country as the United States forges ahead into the second wave of the pandemic.

There were 30,980 COVID-19 cases in Alameda County Wednesday and 522 associated deaths.

Get the full breakdown of Alameda County COVID-19 statistics here.