California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on May 18 that sporting events could resume as soon as June 1 and the state will be easing more of its shelter-in-place restrictions.
Newsom said the sporting events would have to be without fans in the arenas and stadiums. Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League have yet to announce their plans for resuming their respective seasons.
Additionally, Newsom announced the state is relaxing its criteria for counties to start reopening. The criteria had been that counties needed to go 14 days without new COVID-19 deaths and no more than one case per 10,000 people to move further into reopening. The new criteria allow counties to reopen as long as their positivity rate is no higher than 8% and there can’t be a hospitalization rate increase higher than 5% in a span of seven days.
Newsom said that under the new criteria, 53 of the state’s 58 counties are eligible for further reopening and hair salons, in-store shopping and church gatherings could resume statewide in the coming weeks. However, he cautioned that Los Angeles County and counties in the San Francisco Bay Area will need to move more slowly with their re-openings.
“People can go at their own pace, and we are empowering our local health directors and county officials that understand their local communities and conditions,” Newsom said.
The state’s hospitalization and ICU rates declined 7.5% and 8.7%, respectively over the past couple of weeks. There were 1,591 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on May 17 and 41 new deaths from the coronavirus in the state.
