Contra Costa joins 6 Bay Area counties to extend lockdown through May

Concord Costa cities will join six other Bay Area counties in extending the current Shelter-in-Place order through the end of May. The current order was due to expire May 3. “This is tough, but it makes sense,” Supervisor Karen Mitchoff told The Pioneer this morning. Look for more information from her office on Wednesday (See related story: Contra Costa among counties to ease lockdown rules). Here’s the announcement:

Shelter-in-place extended through end of May

Thanks to the collective effort and sacrifice of the 7 million residents across our jurisdictions, we have made substantial progress in slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, ensuring our local hospitals are not overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, and saving lives. At this stage of the pandemic, however, it is critical that our collective efforts continue so that we do not lose the progress we have achieved together.

Hospitalizations have leveled, but more work is needed to safely re-open our communities. Prematurely lifting restrictions could easily lead to a large surge in cases.

The Health Officers will also release a set of broad indicators that will be used to track progress in preparedness and response to COVID-19, in alignment with the framework being used by the State of California. Future easing of restrictions requires that each jurisdiction and various sectors continue to rapidly build critical infrastructure and systems to respond to and control the spread of coronavirus infections and to ensure the health care system’s ability to meet demand.

This global pandemic of COVID-19 is still in its early stages. The virus spreads easily, testing capacity is limited and expanding slowly, and vaccine development is just beginning. We expect to be responding to COVID-19 in our communities for a long time.

As effective as our efforts have been, if we move too fast to ease restrictions, the potential of exponential spread could have grave impacts to health and wellness of our residents as well as the economy. The Health Officers of these seven jurisdictions have been working closely together in leading a unified, regional approach, to protect the health and safety of our residents.

Details regarding this next phase will be shared later in the week, along with the updated order.

For more updates, go to the county website at www.contracosta.ca.gov