Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

California's new lockdown policy, which goes a level farther than the existing Yellow-Orange-Red-Purple tier plan, has clicked into place for millions of state residents. Per news stories at NBC Bay Area (updated 6 Dec 2020) and the New York Times (7 Dec 2020) approximately 33 million Californians— around 82% of the state population— are affected by the new restrictions.



The Southern California and San Joaquin regions fell below the 15% ICU threshold triggering new restrictions. Southern California was at about 12.5%, and San Joaquin fell below 9%. Additionally 5 counties in the Bay Area region, which overall above has just over 20% ICU capacity remaining, chose to enact the new state requirements out of concern that local conditions were worse than region-wide.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

In a sense these new lockdown restrictions are not new. They are similar to the original lockdown restrictions we had starting in March. Those were relaxed a bit after a few months, as the initial pain of the first surge passed. We're well into the third surge now, and the harm is accelerating. So it's time to reenact tougher rules.

The main differences from the Purple tier virtually all of the state had been under are that outdoor dining is curtailed, certain non-essential businesses such as hair salons must close, and essential retail stores have tighter capacity limits. When Hawk and I took a walk around town yesterday we saw a number of people enjoying outdoor dining downtown in our city. It was like a last hurrah as the new restrictions took effect 10pm last night. We scoffed quietly, though, as many of the restaurants had set up their tables such that diners from different groups would be less than 6 feet apart from each other. A big part of the reason we can't have nice things is because too few people care to comply with simple, effective restrictions.