Today, June 15, 2021, California has officially reopened. Here in the Bay Area, we’ve been living under fluctuating coronavirus restrictions since March 2020, when a shelter-in-place order was instituted. Mask mandates arrived in April 2020. The state’s colored tiers reopening system came at the end of last summer.
Now, the tiers are gone. So are capacity limits at restaurants, bars, gyms, places of worship, amusement parks and theaters. Indoor and outdoor gatherings of any size are permitted. And vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks in most settings.
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Many Californians, of course, have been eating out, exercising, going to movies and gathering with loved ones for months as coronavirus cases have declined, vaccination rates have increased and the state has loosened its rules. Our return to “normal” has been steady but gradual, accompanied along the way by both uncertainty and hope.
In that sense, today’s official reopening is less a dramatic shift in daily life (though life will look different: all those exposed chins and noses!) than a celebration of the progress we’ve made after so much loss and loneliness. That celebration consists of coffee dates and commutes, bowling and bars, movies and music. It symbolizes the return of our life together — just in time for the long, bright days of summer.
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