Photos via River Park

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) lifted the regional stay-at-home order statewide on Monday. This includes the San Joaquin Valley, Bay Area, and Southern California regions.

The lifted stay-at-home order allows California counties to return to the framework originally written in the Blueprint for a Safer Economy, which uses colored tiers to indicate business restrictions based on the case rate of Covid-19.

Nearly all Valley counties exiting the stay-at-home order still remain in the most restrictive purple tier, including Madera, Kings, Tulare and Fresno counties.

“Californians heard the urgent message to stay home as much as possible and accepted that challenge to slow the surge and save lives,” said Dr. Tomás Aragón, CDPH director and state public health officer. “Together, we changed our activities knowing our short-term sacrifices would lead to longer-term gains. Covid-19 is still here and still deadly, so our work is not over, but it’s important to recognize our collective actions saved lives and we are turning a critical corner.”

Activities such as outdoor dining and personal services may resume immediately with required modifications, subject to additional local restrictions.

Lorraine Salazar, local restaurant owner and board member of the California State Restaurant Association, advocates for indoor dining now that the public is being vaccinated.

“Now that the stay at home and curfew order have been lifted by the governor, and the restaurants are able to open for outdoor dining, we now need to focus on opening up our dining rooms,” said Salazar.

She believes the governor should reevaluate the tier system since the most vulnerable populations are being vaccinated. And many restaurateurs question whether restricting indoor dining actually reduces the infection rate.

“Even with these restrictions, we saw a surge in cases,” Salazar said. “Everyone has asked, ‘Where was the science to close indoor dining?’ That has just not been given to us.”

Regardless of restrictions in certain business operations, the CDPH encourages the public to continue wearing masks, maintain social distancing, continue to diligently wash hands, avoid gatherings and receive a vaccine when individuals qualify.

“California is slowly starting to emerge from the most dangerous surge of this pandemic yet, which is the light at the end of the tunnel we’ve been hoping for,” said California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly. “Seven weeks ago, our hospitals and front-line medical workers were stretched to their limits, but Californians heard the urgent message to stay home when possible and our surge after the December holidays did not overwhelm the healthcare system to the degree we had feared.”