Monterey County Health Officer Dr. Edward Moreno is reissuing his Shelter in Place Order that went into effect on Wednesday, March 18th, with added restrictions.
Monterey County Health Officer Dr. Edward Moreno is reissuing his Shelter in Place Order that went into effect on Wednesday, March 18th, with added restrictions. These include:
- The new order adds some clarifying language around essential business and activities, as well as some new directives, including:
- Use of playgrounds, dog parks, public picnic areas, and similar recreational areas is prohibited. These areas must be closed to public use.
- Use of shared public recreational facilities such as golf courses, tennis and basketball courts, pools, and rock walls is prohibited. These facilities must be closed for recreational use.
- Sports requiring people to share a ball or other equipment must be limited to people in the same household
- Requires essential businesses to develop a social distancing protocol before April 3
- Most construction—residential and commercial—is prohibited
- Funerals limited to no more than 10 people attending
- Essential businesses expanded to include service providers that enable residential transactions (notaries, title companies, Realtors, etc.); funeral homes and cemeteries; moving companies, rental car companies and rideshare services that specifically enable essential activities
- Essential businesses that continue to operate facilities must scale down operations to their essential component only
Monterey County would like to remind our communities remain under a Stay at Home order until further notice. The order serves to preserve health care capacity and protect the community from being exposed or infected with novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. Maintaining at least a 6ft distance from each other is the most critical strategy for decreasing transmission and spread of COVID-19. Remember we currently have no treatments or vaccine against this virus. While many have responded well to physical distancing orders, as a community we are not doing enough.
Without strictly following physical distancing, we know for certain COVID-19 will continue to spread exponentially for weeks and months
Physical distancing means staying at least 6 feet from others. For example, while it is necessary to go to the grocery store for essential needs, it should not be a family or friend group outing. One family member only should enter the store to shop. Remember to keep the 6ft distance while shopping or standing in a line. Also, in order to spend the least amount of time in a grocery store, prepare a list of items needed ahead of time in order to speed up your time inside. Similarly, we know it’s important to go outside for fresh air and exercise. This should be done without stopping to talk to others. Stay in your own neighborhoods for walks or biking. Parks and beaches are places where keeping a safe distance is difficult.
When going to the store:
- Make a grocery list ahead of time
- Decide on one person to go, or only one person who would leave the car.
- Maintain your distance of 6 ft in any lines entering or when checking out.
- When arriving home, leave bags outside, bring food inside and wipe down
- Wash your hands
These are challenging and unprecedented times requiring unprecedented action from all of us in order to slow down transmission of COVID-19 and “flatten the curve”.