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LOS ANGELES – After a two-month shutdown due to surging COVID-19 cases, patio dining returned to Los Angeles County Friday but with a new restriction forcing restaurants to turn off or remove all televisions from customer seating areas — a clear effort to prevent gatherings of sports fans.<\/p>\n
The county’s revised Health Officer Order also reinstates previous restrictions on outdoor dining: requiring servers to wear masks and face shields, limiting restaurants to 50% of patio capacity, limiting tables to no more than six people from the same household and requiring tables to be at least eight feet apart.<\/p>\n
But the order also states: “Televisions or any other screens that are used to broadcast programming must be removed from the area or turned off. This provision is effective until further notice.”\u00a0The provision is directly aimed at preventing gatherings of sports fans, particularly with the Super Bowl approaching on Feb. 7.<\/p>\n
“We really do need to be cautious as we move forward, given we have a major sporting event,” county Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis said. “We’ve seen lots of people together shouting, yelling, screaming\u00a0\u00a0during the excitement of a game. We want to make sure that as we do these re-openings we can see the impact, and as we move forward, if things continue to get better we may be able to change some of the restrictions that are there.<\/p>\n
Speaking directly about the upcoming Super Bowl, Davis added: “This should be a virtual get-together, just like many of you celebrated the holidays with just your immediate family present. … Make this a virtual event. … Play it safe and don’t organize a party at home.”<\/p>\n
The new health order limits table seating at restaurant patios to six people, and “all people seated at a table should be members of the same household.”<\/p>\n
The order encourages, but does not mandate, seating to be done by advance reservation. It urges restaurants to ask customers “to call in advance to confirm outdoor seating\/serving capacity, where possible.” Restaurants also must collect contact information from customers in case there’s a future need to reach out in contact-tracing efforts.\u00a0The order also lifts the previous requirement that non-essential retail businesses be closed between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.<\/p>\n
On Monday, following the lifting of the state’s regional stay-at-home order, the county immediately cleared personal-service businesses such as barber shops and nail salons to reopen, albeit with strict infection-control requirements.<\/p>\n
Daily COVID-19 infection numbers have been trending downward over the past two weeks, following a surge that saw the county regularly reporting well over 10,000 cases.\u00a0On Friday, the county reported another 7,112 new COVID infections, lifting the cumulative total from throughout the pandemic to 1,104,393.\u00a0The county also reported 228 deaths, raising the overall death toll to 16,332. View the\u00a0latest detailed report by city and demographics here.<\/a><\/p>\n According to figures provided by the state, there were 5,669 people hospitalized in the county due to COVID-19, including 1,498 in intensive care. That was down from 5,855 total patients on Thursday, continuing a downward trend that began in early January when the figure topped 8,000.<\/p>\n Health officials have warned that daily deaths will likely remain high for the rest of the month, even as case numbers and hospital admissions continue to fall. Deaths are considered a lagging indicator, meaning they naturally follow increases in hospitalizations.<\/p>\n While the case numbers have improved, they still remain dramatically high. Dr. Christina Ghaly, the county’s health services director, noted this week that while new COVID hospital admissions have dropped to about 500 per day from the recent high of about 700 per day, the current rate is still double that seen in the virus surge that occurred last summer.\u00a0Davis on Friday stressed the need for all businesses and residents to adhere strictly to infection-control requirements, saying people shouldn’t be lulled into complacency by new economic reopenings.<\/p>\n “Nobody wants to see this number going back or the lines going back up in terms of our cases, our hospitalizations or even our deaths,” Davis said. “We can’t relax. Because if we don’t take precautions, in two weeks we’re going to see cases rise again.”<\/p>\n The county’s COVID-19 transmission rate — reflecting the average number of people a COVID patient infects with the virus — also continues to decline, estimated Wednesday at 0.85, down from 0.94 last week. Keeping that number below 1.0 is considered critical to slowing the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n Allocations of COVID-19 vaccine continue to lag behind demand, with the county expecting to receive roughly 188,000 doses next week. Many of those, however, will be needed to administer second shots to people who have already received the first dose of the two-dose regimen.\u00a0As of the end of last week, the county had received a total of 853,650 doses. It received an estimated 143,900 doses this week, pushing the total to nearly 1 million.<\/p>\n