San Benito County on Tuesday morning submitted paperwork to the state for consideration to ease local stay-at-home restrictions to the greatest extent possible allowed in California.
San Benito County believes it has met a series of criteria established by the California Department of Public Health for certain counties to reopen additional “non-essential” businesses as deemed by the state and enter the latter stages of Stage 2 among four phases in the reopening plan.
The county joined several other communities in the state to submit paperwork for consideration to reopen some currently closed businesses, such as allowing dining in at restaurants, office spaces, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, schools and destination retail shops.
Some of the criteria necessary for consideration of the “variance” to the state’s stay-at-home order include adequate testing, contact tracing, consistently low infection numbers and measures in place to address vulnerable populations.
The state announced the first two counties – Butte and El Dorado – allowed to reopen those additional sectors under the latter part of Stage 2 in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s four-phase plan.
San Benito County is following the state’s shelter order. Counties are allowed to implement their own orders with stricter rules than the state, but cannot ease restrictions further than those in California’s order without consent from the state. San Benito County allowed its own stricter, localized shelter-in-place order to expire May 3.
Additionally on Tuesday, the county announced it is moving ahead on participation in the state’s Great Plate’s Delivered program. That state program involves restaurants delivering three meals daily to local senior citizens.
“We are working diligently to roll this out for seniors in the community,” said Tracey Belton, health and human services director.
