California border county reverses economic reopening
EL CENTRO, Calif. (AP) — A farming region on California's border with Mexico is closing many stores for a second time during the coronavirus pandemic, while further limiting religious services and shutting parks, authorities said Wednesday.
The Imperial County board of supervisors headed off restrictions imposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said last week that the county needed to reverse itself on reopening its battered economy because cases were surging.
Dr. Stephen Munday, the Imperial County health officer, said it was "a hard decision.”
“This health officer order was done because the governor said if we didn't make a decision to do something that he was going to make a decision for us,” Munday said at a news conference. “So we decided we know this community and that we can make the best decisions to try to keep everyone safe here in our community rather than have something imposed on us.”
The order hews closely to a 13-point plan that the county released Monday night for state officials to review. The county will close stores deemed nonessential about four weeks after they were allowed to open, though curbside pickup is still permitted.
Indoor religious services will again be prohibited, while outdoor services will be limited to 100 people with social distancing, Munday said. County parks are closing.
Imperial, with a population of about 180,000, has had about 6,500 cases among 32,700 tested, a positive rate of about 20%. Health experts largely agree that cross-border traffic with Mexicali is at least partly to blame for a surge since the middle of May.
About 500 coronavirus patients have been transferred to hospitals outside the region in recent weeks.