FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 25, 2021
Outdoor Dining, Personal Care Services, and Professional, Collegiate, and Adult and Youth Sports May Resume with Required Modifications; Mandatory Travel Quarantine Remains in Place
Santa Clara County, CA – This morning, the State of California announced the lifting of its Regional Stay at Home Order for all regions statewide, including the Bay Area. Effective today, Santa Clara County has returned to the Purple Tier of the State’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy, with some additional local restrictions remaining in place. Outdoor dining may resume today, as well as personal care services and professional, collegiate, and adult and youth sports. The County’s mandatory travel quarantine remains in place, requiring a 10-day quarantine for most people who travel into the county from more than 150 miles away. As always, businesses and individuals must follow both the State and County Health Officer orders, and where there is a conflict between the two, the stricter rules must be followed.
“Santa Clara County continues to experience very high rates of COVID-19 transmission,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Health Officer and Director of Public Health for the County of Santa Clara. “Our collective actions to date have saved lives and helped protect our healthcare system from collapse. I encourage all residents to remain vigilant, wear a mask anytime you leave your home, maintain a distance of at least 6 feet from anyone outside your household, and get vaccinated when it is your turn.”
Below is a summary of changes effective January 25, 2021. Revised mandatory directives for each will be published to the County’s website today.
- Outdoor dining may resume, subject to the Mandatory Directive for Dining. Indoor dining remains prohibited. Bars, breweries, distilleries, and pubs may serve alcohol only outdoors and only in the same transaction as a meal.
- Personal care services may resume indoors and outdoors, subject to the Mandatory Directive for Personal Care Services.
- Professional and collegiate sports may resume, subject to the updated Mandatory Directive for Collegiate and Professional Sports.
- Adult recreational sports activities may resume subject to the updated Mandatory Directive for Gatherings, including specific rules in Section 9 of that Directive.
- Youth sports may resume subject to the State’s guidance applicable to those activities, as well as the County’s Mandatory Directive for Programs Serving Children and Youth.
- Most businesses that are allowed to open indoor operations to the public must limit capacity of their publicly accessible space to 20%. The County’s Mandatory Directive on Capacity Limitations has been updated to reflect current openings and closings.
- Outdoor gatherings with up to three households are now allowed for any purpose. Larger outdoor gatherings with up to 200 people are allowed only for political, religious, or ceremonial purposes, or as otherwise specifically allowed by the State. Indoor gatherings of any kind remain prohibited. All allowed gatherings must comply with the County’s updated Mandatory Directive for Gatherings.
- The County’s Mandatory Directive on Travel, which requires most people who travel into the county from more than 150 miles away to quarantine for 10 days upon their arrival, is still in effect.
- The County’s Mandatory Directive for Lodging Facilities is still in effect. Lodging facilities may not provide lodging services for non-essential purposes, such as tourism, recreational, or leisure purposes. Non-essential travel should be avoided, especially in light of new variants of COVID-19 that are circulating globally and in the United States.
Key rules remain in effect and applicable to all businesses:
- Telework: All businesses must continue to require workers to do their jobs from home whenever possible. Workers can go into work only to complete the job duties they can’t complete from home.
- Social Distancing Protocol requirements: All businesses must complete and submit a Revised Social Distancing Protocol for each of their facilities on the County’s website at COVID19Prepared.org. Social Distancing Protocols submitted prior to October 11, 2020 are no longer valid. The Revised Social Distancing Protocols must be filled out using an updated template for the Social Distancing Protocol at COVID19Prepared.org.
- Positive case reporting: All businesses (and governmental entities) are legally required to report to the Public Health Department within 4 hours if they learn that any of their workers are confirmed to be positive for COVID-19. They must also ensure workers alert them if they test positive.
- Capacity Limitation and Metering: All businesses must comply with applicable capacity limitations. All businesses (except for acute care hospitals) with indoor facilities open to the public must establish a “metering system” to ensure that the applicable capacity limits are not exceeded by, for example, posting an employee at the facility entrance to track the number of people entering and exiting.
- Indoor Breakroom Closure: All businesses (except acute care hospitals) must limit employees’ access to indoor workplace breakrooms as described in section 3 of the Mandatory Directive on Capacity Limitations.
For more updates and information, the public may visit the county’s website. Information regarding COVID-19 testing is available at www.sccfreetest.org, and information about vaccine eligibility and distribution is available at www.sccfreevax.org.
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