EL DORADO COUNTY MOVES TO RED TIER IN COVID-19 STRUCTURE, LIMITED INDOOR
DINING, GYMS, MOVIE THEATRES, MORE GATHERINGS PERMITTED
Lake Tahoe NV, March 3, 2021 – Eldorado County today announced that they will move the county from the highly restrictive Purple stage for Covid regulations to the Red stage starting tomorrow. El Dorado is the second county in the Sacramento area to depart tight purple-tier restrictions. In the red tier, indoor dining, along with several other types of businesses including fitness centers, movie theaters and museums are cleared to reopen indoors with capacity limits and mandatory masks.
“Starting tomorrow, indoor dining is allowed at 25% capacity, gyms can open at 10% capacity, retailers can open at 50% capacity, and movie theaters can reopen at 25% capacity, among other things. ~ Carla Hass, Communications Director for El Dorado County
Biggest Changes?
- Indoor dining allowed at 25% or 100 people, whichever is less
- Gyms can open indoors at 10%
- Retailers can open at 50% capacity
- Movie Theaters can reopen at 25%
- Museums can reopen at 25%
While this is great news for local business in the region we are reminded that we are far from normal lifestyles in our communities. Lake Tahoe has been a confusing place at times this winter with different regulations on the Nevada Side and with Ski resorts and outdoor adventure still bringing crowds to the region. The county still issued this positive change with this disclaimer of where we are as a region and how the responsibility to stay healthy and out of further regulations lies in ourhands.
“That said, this is not the time to relax the behaviors that have gotten us to this point. Even with the tens of thousands or residents who have already been vaccinated, it’s imperative that we continue to take the actions to further protect our residents and visitors. These actions – wearing a mask, keeping physical distance from those outside your household and not gathering with large groups of people – will ultimately be the very things that will get us to the next level of
normalcy.
“To put a finer point on that issue, we didn’t make this move based on our daily case rate. We were able to make the move to the Red tier based on meeting the County’s overall test positivity rate and that positivity rate in our socioeconomically disadvantaged census tracts each for two consecutive weeks.
The South Lake Tahoe region has routinely promoted #SierraSafely as a way to remind everyone it is our responsibility to regulate how we gather, travel and enjoy the region.
“As we all know, tourism has been one of the hardest-hit sectors of our economy, and while Lake Tahoe has seen visitors as restrictions have lifted, our businesses and activities that rely on tourism are impacted,” said Carol Chaplin, president and CEO for the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority.