State likely to order new restrictions in Solano County this week
The number of available hospital ICU beds continues to drop in the Bay Area region.
(Graphic by Solano News Update)
State health officials will likely order Solano County and neighboring Bay Area counties to implement tougher COVID-19 restrictions this week as the number of available hospital intensive care unit beds continues to drop.
The stronger restrictions are connected to an around-the-clock stay-at-home order that was issued earlier this month for counties where the number of available hospital ICU bed space drops below 15 percent.
State health officials are monitoring bed space based on a regional level, with Solano County being placed in the Bay Area region along with around a dozen other neighboring counties. The stay-at-home order has already been enacted in three of the five monitoring regions in California.
While the Bay Area region was not forced to immediately implement the new restrictions, the amount of available hospital ICU bed space has continued to drop since the start of the month.
As of Friday afternoon, the number of available hospital ICU bed space in the Bay Area region was 16.7 percent, a decrease of nearly 8 percentage points from the previous week, according to state health data. (State officials do not update these figures on the weekends.)
In Solano County, the number of available hospital ICU bed space is dwindling but still above the state’s average threshold. But some neighboring counties in the Bay Area region have nearly exhausted their available bed space, weighing down the region’s average.
The Bay Area region will likely see tougher restrictions imposed under the state’s stay-at-home order by the middle of the week, according to a projection of available hospital ICU bed space by Solano News Update.
Those tougher restrictions including an all-out ban on non-essential assembly and travel for residents. The order also requires restaurants and breweries to stop offering outdoor service and transition to delivery and pick-up service only. Retail businesses are allowed to operate indoor services with reduced capacity but aren’t allowed to offer food or beverage services to in-store customers.
[Editor’s note: This version has been corrected from one sent by e-mail that erroneously stated the amount of available hospital ICU bed space in the Bay Area region. The figure is 16.7 percent, not 17.6 percent.]
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