Gyms, movie theaters, restaurants, and other businesses in Riverside County can serve customers indoors with restrictions starting Wednesday, March 17, after the county advanced into the red tier of California’s coronavirus reopening framework.
Updated metrics posted Tuesday, March 16, by the state showed the county moved into the red tier after its adjusted rate of new cases fell to 6.1 per 100,000 residents. That was the final hurdle standing between the county, which has been in the purple tier, and red-tier status.
The county also qualifies for the red tier because of its low COVID-19 positive test rate — 3.3% — and low positive test rate in disadvantaged communities — 3.7%.
Red tier status will officially start in the county on Wednesday, said county spokeswoman Brooke Federico.
“We’ve waited a long time for more of our local businesses to increase operations or return to serving more customers indoors,” Supervisor Karen Spiegel said in a Tuesday news release. “Many businesses were negatively impacted beyond what we thought possible.”
“Today’s news about moving into the red tier is a positive and hopeful sign of more great things to come. If we continue to work together, we can keep this momentum going. We can reopen safely and continue to see our numbers fall, if we all do our part to keep coronavirus at bay.”
The news comes amid falling cases and hospitalizations that have eased business restrictions in other Southern California counties. San Bernardino and Orange counties moved into the red tier for the first time Sunday, March 14, while Los Angeles County achieved red-tier status Monday, March 15.
California operates under the Blueprint for a Safer Economy, a four-tier system that eases or restricts what businesses can do depending on a county’s positive test rate, its number of new cases per 100,000 residents and other metrics.
The worse the metrics are, the more restrictions are in place. Counties have to meet certain thresholds for several weeks before moving tiers, which range from purple for the most restrictive to yellow for the least restrictive.
Riverside County first entered the red tier in September, but slid back into purple as cases and hospitalizations surged, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to issue a new statewide stay-at-home order in December.
Moving to the red tier allows gyms, movie theaters, museums, and dance and yoga studios, among other businesses, to allow customers inside, subject to capacity limits. For example, restaurants and movie theaters are restricted to 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer.
Shopping malls and retail shops, which were open in the purple tier, can increase their capacities to 50%, and the red tier paves the way for in-person instruction for grades 7 through 12, though school districts have the final say on whether that happens.
While Riverside County has been in the red tier before, it took longer to leave the purple tier this time around because it had the state’s worst adjusted case rate for multiple weeks in January and February, and while the numbers have been tumbling ever since — currently down more than 90% from the peak two months ago — the county’s rate has remained slightly higher than its neighbors.
County officials blamed the lag in part on a lack of testing that penalized the county with a higher adjusted case rate. In late February, officials re-issued a call for residents to get tested for COVID-19 in order to help the county move into the red tier.
Staff Writer Nike Johnson contributed to this report.
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