CA Salons Can Reopen As 'Monitoring List' Swapped For New 'Tiers'

CALIFORNIA — As widely suspected, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday major changes to the way California approaches reopening the economy. While he removed the dreaded "monitoring list," he replaced the system with four new colored tiers that will dictate what businesses can and cannot operate, and at what capacity. He also announced a large and popular business sector — hair salons — can reopen across the state, pending county approval.

The closest equivalent to the previous monitoring list is the new purple tier. Counties who will be grouped into this color tier are those counties that have seen a weekly average of more than 7 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents, and have a positivity rate greater than 8 percent. As of Friday, 38 of the state's 58 counties fell into this tier.

However, a substantial change with this reopening framework is that even those counties in purple will be allowed to reopen indoor hair salons and barbershops starting Monday, with specific industry guidelines. Counties are still allowed to impose stricter guidelines if they wish.

"For the last few weeks we've been previewing that we wanted to make adjustments based upon the input we received from county health officers, input we've received from experts, our own experience here in the state of California to adjust the framework from the old monitoring list to a more dynamic list that we hope is not only more dynamic, but is much more simple to understand," Newsom said during a press briefing Friday. "It provides four tiers, not 58 county variations."

Newsom said the new system is meant to be four main things: statewide, simple, slow and stringent.

Following purple, or "widespread risk level," counties will enter the red (substantial risk level), orange (moderate risk level), and finally yellow (minimal risk level) tiers, with restrictions loosening along the color pathway.

Counties must remain in a colored tier for at least 21 days before they can advance to the next color, and cannot "skip" tiers.

The state is expected to reassess and update levels as needed every Tuesday.

"Today we're talking about a framework and moving forward, not about reopening," CA Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly stressed. "This is just an important message to remind people that we're not out of the woods... that we need everyone's effort still... we need 40 million to continue to come together to crush this curve."

Along with the announcement of the new reopening framework, the state launched a website devoted to helping residents research what businesses are open in their counties.

Notably absent from the list of business sectors was amusement parks. Newsom said that the state is working with these businesses separately.

"We are working with them," Newsom said. "We set our discussions aside on that, they are forthcoming.... you'll be getting that as soon as we work through that."

On Friday, the state reported 5,329 new Covid-19 cases. The 7-day average stood at 5,503 with a 17-day positivity rate of 6.0.

"We haven't seen that in quite some time," Newsom noted.