SACRAMENTO — In a press briefing Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans for a new system to monitor COVID-19 by county that will guide decisions for loosening and restricting businesses and other operations, starting Monday, Aug. 31. It will replace the current county monitoring watch list.
Dubbed the “Blueprint for a Safer Economy,” the format categorizes counties by the following risk levels and assigns a color to each: widespread (purple), substantial (red), moderate (orange) and minimal (yellow).
The risk levels are determined by two metrics, daily new cases per 100,000 and and positive case rate. Counties must maintain a certain threshold for these metrics to move to less restrictive tiers. This is a simplification of the California Department of Public Health’s county monitoring list, which used six metrics to measure virus trends by county.
Newsom said the state did not include a green level “because we don’t believe there’s a green light that says go back to the way things were.”
As of Friday, Butte and Glenn counties were each in the purple tier, the most restrictive of the four. Many of the same restrictions apply to business operations as they did with the monitoring list, however, retail and shopping centers, and personal care services like barbers and hair salons are allowed to open indoor operations at 25% capacity. This is significant for certain businesses that didn’t have the space or resources to move operations outdoors previously.
Other industries look similar to the county monitoring list. For example, under the purple tier, restaurants are required to keep operations outdoors, however, a move to the red tier, by achieving a lower virus transmission, would allow restaurants to operate indoors at 25% of capacity or 100 patrons, whichever is the fewer of the two.
“Butte County Public Health just received the final details about this change and is reviewing the information to understand the new system,” the county health department said in a statement. “The state map indicates Butte County is in the ‘purple tier’ indicating the virus is widespread. The purple tier is similar to the county data monitoring list in that it is the most restrictive.
“There is some good news: even in the most restrictive ‘purple tier’ the state is going to allow barbershops, salons and malls to be open for inside operations.”
Glenn County, meanwhile, cleared the state’s watch list earlier this week and was set to go through a probationary period as the state continued monitoring the county’s metrics. On Friday, Glenn County Health and Human Services confirmed on Facebook it will be placed on the purple, or “widespread” tier on Monday. Further updates will come once the new system is in place.
The tiers are distinguished by the following thresholds. Further breakdowns of each tier can be found at www.covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy.
- Purple: more than seven daily new cases per 100,000 residents or more than 8% of tests returning positive. Many indoor operations are required to close in this tier.
- Red: new case rate between 4-7 per 100,000 and a testing positivity rate between 5-8%. Certain non-essential businesses are to remain closed in this tier.
- Orange: new case rate between 1-3.9 per 100,000 and a testing positivity rate of between 2-4.9%.
- Yellow: Less than one daily new case per 100,000 and less than 2% positivity rate. Currently only three counties, Modoc, Alpine and Tuolumne, meet this threshold.
Newsom indicated in the press briefing this system will be in place until further notice, adding “we’re going to be more stubborn this time.”
“These are the guidelines, to get us through this flu season, this twin-demic, as we deal with flu and we deal with COVID-19, to work for these next few months in California,” he said.
Two more virus deaths in Butte County
Butte County Public Health’s COVID-19 dashboard update on Friday reflected two additional deaths due to complications from the virus. One individual was over 75 years of age and one individual was between 65 and 74 years old.
Butte County has now seen 23 county residents pass away as a result of the virus, including 14 in the month of August.
