Shelter-at-Home Extends to May 3 and New Restrictions Take Effect for SoCo; Marin Co.
Sonoma County residents and businesses must continue to follow a shelter-at-home order through at least May 3, with new provisions that allow rebuilding efforts from wildfires to continue but otherwise bar all but the most essential construction work while shutting down short-term vacation rentals and strengthening social distancing requirements on businesses allowed to remain open.
The new, extended order, issued late Tuesday by the county’s health officer, Dr. Sundari Mase, came in the wake of an announcement that schools statewide were unlikely to reopen classrooms this instructional year, forestalling a return to campus for nearly 70,000 local K-12 students.
The move also comes amid a new breakdown of Sonoma County cases on Tuesday showing that two children are among the 85 people who have tested positive for the coronavirus, which can cause a serious respiratory disease. Information on the children’s condition, including whether they had been hospitalized, was not immediately available.
The breakdown Tuesday night showed 17 local virus patients in hospital care, 61 not hospitalized, and the care of an additional seven unknown. Only one death, a man in his 60s, has been reported.
The extended order to stay home aligns Sonoma County with at least seven other Bay Area counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo and Solano — that moved to extend their orders this week. Napa County had yet to announce its plans late Tuesday while the statewide order handed down by Gov. Gavin Newsom has no set end date.