Los Angeles County reopens outdoor dining, but bans TV Follow Us
Question of the Day By Jessica Chasmar - The Washington Times - Friday, January 29, 2021
Los Angeles County issued a health order Thursday reopening outdoor dining after nearly two months of lockdown but banning establishments from turning on their TVs to prevent crowding.
“Televisions or any other screens that are used to broadcast programming must be removed from the area or turned off,” the order states. “This provision is effective until further notice.”
Restaurants and breweries can resume outdoor dining at 50% capacity after they were shut down in November due to an uptick in coronavirus cases.
With coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continuing to decline, officials are worrying about the next potential super spreader event: the Super Bowl.
Los Angeles County and California have managed to bend the curve after a deadly fall and winter surge in COVID-19, but the football championship is one of several concerns. Outdoor dining is expected to be allowed to resume at restaurants as early as Friday, the last of several stay-at-home restrictions to be lifted this week.
L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti on Thursday urged people to keep up their guard and limit exposure to the virus.
“It’s about minimizing risk,” Garcetti said during an evening news briefing. Even as COVID-19 hospitalizations have fallen from a peak of 8,098 on Jan. 5 to 5,855 on Wednesday, the number is still far higher than it was in early October, when fewer than 700 COVID-19 patients were in the hospital.
Just weeks ago, Los Angeles County’s hospitals were overwhelmed and on the brink of a worst-case catastrophic scenario, with plans ready if doctors needed to ration healthcare.
But with the region now in its fourth week of declining hospitalizations, it was clear Wednesday that the county was decisively on its way out of its third surge of the pandemic, its deadliest yet.
Yes, hospitals this week are still under pressure scheduled surgeries are still suspended, and there’s still a shortage of medical staff, with hospitals relying on nurses drafted from clinics, contract agencies and the federal and state governments. L.A. County’s hospitals are still under great strain, with nearly three times as many COVID-19 patients as it did during the peak of the summer wave. The state has opened up two surge hospitals in Sun Valley and Hawaiian Gardens that have been used to relieve the strain on other facilities.
Both motions were introduced by Council President Nury Martinez.
The first one instructs the Chief Legislative Analyst to work with the Department of Recreation and Parks and the Department of General Services to identify city facilities, particularly in higher risk communities and low-income communities of color, that could be used to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine.
The second one instructs the Chief Legislative Analyst to: report back to City Council with a strategy for equitable distribution of vaccines with priority given to low-income communities of color and essential workers who are people of color; and report back to City Council with information on Gov. Gavin Newsom s $300 million vaccine budget proposal and how Los Angeles can use that fund on a public outreach campaign for communities of color.
Gov. Newsom lifted the statewide stay-at-home order, allowing outdoor dining and businesses to reopen, after new COVID numbers have begun to decline. But many are worried it will only trigger another spike.