LOS ANGELES (CN) — Select businesses and retail shops in Los Angeles County will reopen Friday, 50 days after public health officials instituted a stay-at-home order to slow the spread of Covid-19.
On Wednesday, health officials announced some semblance of normalcy would return to LA County as the health order is relaxed, but in-store shopping will not come back just yet.
Florists, car dealers, sporting goods stores and toy stores will reopen, with curbside pickup will be in place for stores according to public health officials.
The announcement that the 10.4 million LA County residents will enter a new stage of the novel coronavirus was made as health officials announced 55 new deaths and 851 new infections since Tuesday.
Wednesday’s figures bring the county’s death toll to 1,367, and 28,644 residents have been infected. Half of the county’s deaths — 682 — have been people who lived in communal settings. Most were residents of nursing homes according to LA County Public Health director Barbara Ferrer.
LA County’s rollout to reopening its economy will include ensuring medical supply, hospital bed and ventilator capacity in the event of a new outbreak and spike in infections, said Ferrer.
Physical distancing, face masks and other infection control measures will still be in place for many businesses.
“Deaths are a devastating and unacceptable reality of this virus,” said Ferrer. “We would like as we move forward not see an increase in the death rate.”
Nursing homes and assisted living facilities saw Covid-19 spread rapidly and health care workers in those residential settings will need to be tested regularly. Officials anticipate they will be able to provide 60,000 tests per week for its nursing facilities.
Public health officials say if they expect to see 2,000 infections, they will need to conduct contact tracing of some 8,000 close contacts to determine the spread of the virus.
“We need to be each other’s helpers” as business reopen and people practice social distancing, said Ferrer.
While rural parts of the state like Yuba and Sutter counties saw few to no Covid-19 infections and reopened before state officials gave the go-ahead to relax the stay-at-home orders, LA County’s rollout will need to be different.
“What’s best for other counties may not be the best for Los Angeles County,” said LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “LA County cannot be more lenient on what stores can be reopened than what the state dictates.”
LA County projects revenue losses could reach $2 billion by next year and officials will propose pay cuts in the coming weeks for agency and county departments.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said Wednesday there will be extended economic doldrums for the state and the nation after the acute crisis created by the pandemic passes.
“It’s going to take a lot longer than people think,” Newsom said when asked about the recovery timeline during his daily press briefing. “These are Depression-era numbers we are seeing.”
In January, the governor touted the state’s record levels of low unemployment and billions of dollars in reserves. That’s all gone now, he said.
“Our budget is tens of billions of dollars short of where it needs to be,” Newsom said.
Newsom is set to unveil the budget on May 14 and it will be severely dented by the record unemployment claims that abound statewide as the Covid-19 has shuttered a huge portion of the state, national and world economy.
“We have distributed $2 billion since Sunday to unemployment insurance accounts,” Newsom said during the presser. “The economic challenges are quite extraordinary.”
With this in mind, Newsom announced a program that extends workers’ compensation to more frontline workers, including firefighters, paramedics and other workers in the health care industry, saying they have been left out of federal and previous state paid leave programs.
