Barber shops, hair salons and malls allowed to reopen in Sonoma County

 Barber shops, hair salons and malls in Sonoma County will be allowed to resume indoor operations with modifications on Monday due to revised health orders issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday and confirmed by Sonoma County Public Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase.

The reopening of these operations coincides with the launching of a new four-tiered structure for determining how each of the state’s 58 counties is doing in slowing the spread of the coronavirus and the extent to which businesses and other activities will be allowed due to the pandemic. Under the new framework, titled Blueprint for a Safer Economy, each county has been grouped into one of four colored tiers – Purple (Widespread), Red (Substantial), Orange (Moderate) and Yellow (Minimal) – based on the prevalence of COVID-19 is in the county and the rate of community spread. Sonoma County is one of 38 counties that will start in the purple tier.

The new state directive creating the Blueprint framework replaces a July 13 State Order that had placed Sonoma County on the state monitoring list and prohibited activities such as indoor operations at restaurants, gyms and museums. Those restrictions will remain in place with the exception of barber shops, hair salons and malls, which will be allowed to reopen under detailed modifications to limit the spread of the virus. For example, malls will not be allowed to open food courts or common areas and must limit capacity to 25 percent of normal operations.

Dr. Sundari Mase confirmed the adoption of the state’s order over the weekend after reviewing the state’s new framework and the data to better understand the risk in Sonoma County.

“We feel comfortable in opening up this sector of our economy as the data show we’ve had only a handful of cases from indoor salons,” said Dr. Mase. “But we still have a ways to go before we will be able to move to the next tier and allow more activities to reopen under the state’s blueprint.”

The state’s new framework focuses primarily on two metrics: the number of new cases per 100,000 residents per day (based on a seven day average with seven day lag) in each county and the percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive. Counties must remain in each tier for a minimum of 21 days before being eligible to move to the next level. 

Residents are encouraged to go to covid19.ca.gov to track where Sonoma County and other counties stand and what activities are allowed.