Sonoma County’s health officer is slightly loosening restrictions on indoor public gatherings. Dr. Sundari Mase said that the 50 person capacity limits for such events will apply only to visitors of events, and not apply to performers, athletes, coaches, event staff and news media. The cap of 100 people at outdoor events remains. Dr. Mase did defend the order and say, because of it, there is reason to be optimistic.
“We think our 30-day restriction on the size of gatherings has helped us turned the corner and ease some of the stresses of the variants by our hospitals and other healthcare partners who really faced and are still facing staffing challenges as they struggle to take care of sick patients,” Dr. Mase said. “While large numbers of their own workforce were also out with Covid-19.
Dr. Mase said she issued the order to help ease the strain on hospitals as Sonoma County’s case numbers soared earlier this month. New cases per 100,000 people seems to have peaked at 247 on January 10th and has gone down below 200 as of January 20th. The health order will expire on February 10th and is not expected to be extended at this time.
