L.A. County Officials to Present Guidelines for Reopening by End of the Week, Including Beaches

Los Angeles County officials said in a May 5 press briefing that officials will present guidelines later in the week for reopening the county, and beaches could reopen soon.

FOX 11 Los Angeles reported that County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the county will put forward “a plan that’ll have our beaches reopen in ways that are safe.” She added the beaches could reopen “relatively soon.”

As the county prepares to start reopening, officials will monitor the county’s health care infrastructure, testing and tracing capacity as well as hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) rates.

“One of the saddest things would be to reopen too quickly, not only see too many deaths and too many hospitalizations, but also have to go back and tell businesses to close again,” Ferrer said. “I think we need to do everything we can to be on a steady slow path for recovery that makes sense for L.A. County.”

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti cautioned in a May 4 briefing that while California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has signaled that California could begin to reopen on May 8, Los Angeles County won’t reopen as quickly as other counties in the state.

“There (won’t be) a giant reopening,” Garcetti said. “This is a series of steps that we have to assess each time, and they will succeed more if we practice the prescriptions that are given to us.”

He added that people will have to wear masks and stay six feet apart from one another in public areas.

“What we should all ready ourselves for, is the new normal, no matter what is open or closed,” Garcetti said.

The county’s shelter-in-place order is scheduled to expire on May 15; it was initially implemented on March 19.

There were 1,638 new COVID-19 cases and 58 deaths from the virus in the county on May 5, bringing the county’s respective totals to 27,815 and 1,313.