COVID Surge: Sonoma County Prepares for Stay-Home Order Beginning Saturday
PETALUMA (KPIX) -- Sonoma County is now joining five other Bay Area counties in imposing the stay-at-home order which will start Saturday just after midnight. Businesses are bracing for the next round of closures.
Many of the business owners in Petaluma say they saw this coming. Starting Saturday, there will be no more outdoor dining and people will have to stay home for anything but essential activities.
"Initially like anything else, you're like 'oh geez, not again!'" said Peter White, owner of Sugo Trattoria.
White is not surprised by the latest round of closures announced by the county Thursday.
"We need to act now before it gets worse in Sonoma County," said Dr. Sundari Mase, the Sonoma County public health officer.
While, as a region, ICU bed capacity hovers around 18 percent, it has fallen below 12 percent in Sonoma County due to a sharp increase in Covid cases. Sonoma County is now seeing 25 new cases per 100,000 per day. The 14-day case rate is 343 per 100,000 -- the highest numbers Sonoma County has seen so far in this pandemic.
Those numbers may not reflect the actual spread in the community because the county now has a shortage of contact tracers.
"The longer it takes us to reach our cases to isolate and our contacts identified in quarantine, the more likely we'll have more spread in our communities," Dr. Mase said.
Sonoma County has been stuck in the purple tier since the governor released the color-coded system in late August. Despite having widespread Covid cases, Dr. Mase says the waited before joining other Bay Area counties in imposing the stay-home order.
"We thought that was important for our business communities. We weren't seeing the very alarming trends until this last week and a half," Dr. Mase said.
At Sugo Trattoria, White says his business will survive but his biggest concern is to provide enough hours for his employees until they can reopen for outdoor and indoor dining.
"After what is eight months now, your emotions are up and down so ... you have to roll with it."
Sonoma County is expected to get 4,875 Pfizer vaccines in about a week and will receive doses of the Moderna vaccine later this month.
The stay-at-home order in Sonoma County will run through Jan. 9.
