Ventura, L.A. Counties Move Into Red Tier

AGOURA HILLS, CA — Agoura Hills is surrounded by a sea of red. At midnight Tuesday, Los Angeles County moved into the red tier, and on Wednesday at 12:01 p.m., Ventura County will also enter the red. That means that all around Agoura Hills, indoor dining, gyms, theaters are allowed to reopen, and 7-12 students are allowed to return to campus, albeit at reduced capacity.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors announced Tuesday that their county has met the recently adjusted standards for reopening. To enter the red tier, a county must have an average case rate of four to ten new daily per 100,000, five to eight percent positive tests for the whole county, and a less than 8.1 percent positivity rate in the lowest 25 percent of the Healthy Places Index in the county. As of Monday, Ventura had a case rate of 9.1, a positivity rate of 3.5 percent, and a health equity rate of 6.8 percent, according to the county’s official COVID website.

Ventura was briefly in the red, and some of its school districts began to reopen. But it was downgraded to purple in November amid surging cases. The county became a center of lockdown protests, with a church in Newbury Park continuing indoor services, and actor Kirk Cameron holding several unmasked Christmas carol singalongs in Thousand Oaks and an unincorporated area of Malibu. Just over the county border in Agoura Hills, Cronies Sports Grill defied LA County's outdoor dining ban, resulting in fines and court cases.

In early March, California loosened the requirements to move between tiers after it administered 2 million vaccine doses to disadvantaged communities. It then began allowing counties, with an adjusted case rate of 10 or under based on the number of tests performed, to leave the most restrictive purple tier. Previously, the number was seven.

Ventura and LA counties are joining a total of 22 other California counties exiting the purple tier this week: Orange, San Bernardino, Contra Costa, Sonoma, Placer, Mendocino, San Benito, Tuolumne, Siskiyou, Amador, Colusa and Mono counties have already joined, while Sacramento, San Diego, Riverside, Ventura, Lake, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Sutter, Tehama and Tulare counties will join Wednesday.

In the red tier, indoor dining can open at 25 percent capacity, as long as that does not exceed 100 people. Gyms can also open at up to 10 percent capacity. Retail can operate indoors at up to 50 percent capacity, while movie theaters and places of worship can also open indoors at up to 25 percent capacity.

Schools can also begin letting in grades 7-12 at reduced capacity. Las Virgenes said 7-12 graders will return to campus next week. Students at Westlake High School, Newbury Park High School, and Thousand Oaks High School returned last week for two days a week, and next week, they will be back on campus for four days a week, except Wednesday.