More hiking trails and recreation areas reopened Saturday as California continued to ease into the recovery phase of its fight against the coronavirus.
The Angeles National Forest on Saturday reopened 23 popular trails, four trailheads and 19 roads in the San Gabriel Mountains. Forest officials also will begin gradually reopening campgrounds, picnic areas and other “developed recreation” sites off-limits since early April.
That was preceded by the reopening of Los Angeles city and county trails May 9, followed by L.A. County beaches on Wednesday.
California is currently moving through Phase 2 of relaxing its stay-at-home orders. Along with many outdoor areas, businesses deemed lower risk have been gradually permitted to reopen, with retailers offering curbside pickup only.
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Counties that meet certain criteria can apply for a variance to move more quickly through the phase, allowing for the opening of additional businesses like dine-in restaurants and shopping malls.
Riverside County notified Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday that it was requesting such an acceleration, saying that it had met six of the seven criteria to reopen more quickly.
The county has a plan to protect essential workers and expand contact tracing capabilities; it also has ample testing capacity, the ability to protect vulnerable residents, and enough surge capacity in its health system, the county Board of Supervisors wrote in a letter to Newsom.
When it comes to the seventh requirement — that a county must demonstrate that it has contained COVID-19 by having no deaths in the past 14 days, and no more than one case per 10,000 residents over the same timeframe — county officials said it was not attainable.
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“In our opinion, the metrics are unrealistic for urban counties, and Riverside County in particular, where our geographic size and population make it impossible that no deaths from COVID19 will result in a 14-day timeframe,” they wrote.
Instead, they wrote, it would be more appropriate to adopt federal benchmarks, which the county is already meeting due to downward trends in cases, positive test results and flu and COVID-19-like symptomatic cases.
Butte County is one of 19 counties that has certified to the state that it meets the conditions for additional businesses to reopen.
But after a person who attended an in-person religious service on Mother’s Day tested positive for the coronavirus infection, public health officials issued a strongly worded warning to residents not to speed too quickly through the process.
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The person received their positive test results the day after the service, which had more than 180 attendees, officials said Friday in a news release.
Gatherings of any size remain prohibited, even in counties that are reopening more quickly than the rest of the state. But the organization that held the service chose to open its doors despite the rules, exposing the entire congregation to the coronavirus, officials said.
“This decision comes at a cost of many hours and a financial burden to respond effectively to slow or stop the spread of COVID-19,” the release said, noting that health officials are working to notify all those who attended the service and instruct them to self-quarantine. The county health department also is working with healthcare partners to obtain testing for all attendees, officials said.
“At this time, organizations that hold in-person services or gatherings are putting the health and safety of their congregations, the general public and our local ability to open up at great risk,” Danette York, county public health director, said in a statement urging residents to follow stay-at-home orders.
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“Moving too quickly through the reopening process can cause a major setback and could require us to revert back to more restrictive measures,” York said.
In Los Angeles County, which is home to nearly half the state’s confirmed coronavirus cases and more than half the related deaths, officials have said that it’s extremely unlikely they would attempt to apply for a variance to reopen more quickly than the rest of the state.
But like the state, the county has seen varying impacts from the virus, with some areas much less hard hit than others.
For that reason, L.A. County officials are trying to determine whether it’s possible for individual cities that meet the benchmarks to move to the next stage of reopening before other parts of the county do.
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Supervisor Kathryn Barger said Friday that the cities of Santa Clarita, Lancaster and Palmdale have approached the county to inquire about reopening and appear to meet Newsom’s criteria.
She said she’s asked county counsel and the Department of Public Health to provide an analysis of whether there’s anything in the governor’s order that would permit the cities to do so.
“I think it’s important for cities to be able to meet their own benchmarks and safely reopen so they are not dependent only on the county,” Barger said.
