CA Social Distancing Mandate, Capacity Limits End June 15

CALIFORNIA — On March 19, 2020 Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered nearly 40 million people in California to shelter in place amid the burgeoning coronavirus pandemic. Almost a year and a half later, the state will finally lift the stringent restrictions that Californians became accustomed to.

On June 15, California will no longer require social distancing and will lift all capacity limits, officials announced Friday.

"We’re at a place with this pandemic where those requirements of the past are no longer needed for the foreseeable future," Secretary of California Health and Human Services Dr. Mark Ghaly said.

Cases plummeted dramatically several months ago and have remained low, in stark contrast to the height of the state's winter coronavirus surge. The state's positivity rate has also consistantly hovered around 1 percent, among the lowest in the country.

Nearly, 35.5 million vaccine doses have been administered and more than three-quarters of residents over 65 have received at least one dose, Ghaly said. The rising level of vaccinations mean it’s safe for California to remove nearly all restrictions next month, he said.

More than 15 million people — about 47 percent of the population — have been fully vaccinated, according to recent state data.

The state will also do away with its color-coded four-tier system that restricts activities based on each county’s coronavirus prevalence.

Lifting these restrictions will inevitably result in some increased transmissions, Ghaly said. But the health care system should be able to handle them and local officials can still impose additional limits if there are outbreaks, he added.

Health officials will also continue tracking whether virus mutations start breaking through vaccinations, which he said could prompt a return to restrictions.

"We’re going to be watching that very closely," he said. "But I think we are in a place statewide where we have a significant number of people vaccinated and protected."

Social distancing — a phrase that has become almost household among Californians — and limits on how many people can be inside businesses at any one time will disappear, Ghaly said, and there will no longer be (physical distancing) restrictions for attendees, customers and guests in business sectors."

The reopening date won't signal to an abrupt end to wearing masks, Ghaly said, but the state will adjust its rules to correspond with federal guidance. This week, officials announced they would wait until June 15 to allow fully vaccinated residents to forgo masks in virtually all situations just days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released their own guidance.

However, those guidelines state that everyone should still wear masks in crowded indoor locations such as airplanes, buses, hospitals and prisons.

READ MORE: 6 Things To Know About California's New Face Mask Rules

And county leaders are the ones who hold the real power over mask rules.

"As always, local public health departments can implement local restrictions that are stricter than state guidance," the California Department of Public Health told Patch in a statement. But the state hasn't clarified how that will work.

California’s workforce regulators — Cal OSHA — are separately developing safety rules that will apply to employers, Ghaly said.

While Ghaly said Friday that there will not be a state-mandated "vaccine passport" program, businesses and venues will be permitted to require vaccine verification for employees and customers.

"I can’t emphasize enough how the vaccine has allowed us to get to a place where we can safely do the things that we loved to do before the pandemic," said Los Angeles County health director Barbara Ferrer. The state's lingering deaths, she said, "are almost all among people not fully vaccinated. This is preventable."

The state will also require vaccine verification or a negative test result within 72 hours for "mega events." These events are characterized by large crowds greater than 5,000 people indoors. For large events outdoors, verification is recommended.

"We are requiring — requiring, not recommending — a vaccine verification/negative test, and there will not be an option to come in if you're neither of those and you can't verify that by just wearing a mask," he said.

Ghaly said the state will provide guidance to venue operators and other business owners about how to go about verifying vaccinations or negative tests, possibly including "self-attestation" by attendees.

"I’m very confident in their decisions and very confident this is the right move," said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

Gandhi said there is plenty of evidence that vaccines are effective and California has done a good job of distributing doses.

The weeks in between "will provide ample time for our businesses, organizations and residents to prepare for these changes," Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said.

California will also follow federal guidelines on travel, and there will likely only be restrictions to countries where the virus is highly prevalent.

"We have weathered the storm, and I am hopeful that this finally signals our return to normalcy," Barger said.

California was the nation's coronavirus epicenter in early 2021, now the state's positivity rate rests among the lowest in the nation. And the CDC has estimated that about 20 percent of Californians have been infected with the coronavirus. More than 61,000 people have died from complications due to COVID-19 in California — the most in any state in the U.S.

Newsom has been eyeing the June 15 date for weeks as the vaccine supply went from scarce to ample in a matter of months.

"I think our shared objective has always been to get the economy open as quickly as we can by safely doing so," said Dee Dee Myers, director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.

Newsom faces a recall election this fall driven in large part by those frustrated with his restrictions during the pandemic.

"Restrictions around eating and drinking, open bars, buffets, things like that will all go away,” she said. People can now also plan with certainty for weddings, conventions and large sporting events, "a really important milestone" as officials try to reinvigorate the economy.

The Associated Press, Patch staffer Kat Schuster and City News Service contributed to this report.

California Coronavirus Data as of Saturday

• California has 3,668,842 confirmed cases to date. Numbers may not represent true day-over-day change as reporting of test results can be delayed.

• There were 1,292 newly recorded confirmed cases Wednesday.

• The 7-day positivity rate is 1.0%.

• There have been 63,712,268 tests conducted in California. This represents an increase of 143,019 during the prior 24-hour reporting period.

• There have been 61,603 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

• As of May 20, providers have reported administering a total of 35,414,233 vaccine doses statewide.

READ MORE ABOUT CORONAVIRUS IN CALIFORNIA:

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Chain Stores Ditch Masks, But In CA They May Have To Wait

• More than a dozen retailers drop their mask rules in line with new CDC rules. But California locations may need to keep them a month longer.

CA Mask Mandate Officially Ending June 15

• Golden State officials announced plans on Monday to unmask CA this summer, but that mandate will stay in place for the next several weeks.