Riverside County Bracing For Financial Impacts Of Shutdowns Under New Stay-At-Home Order
RIVERSIDE (CBSLA) -- A new stay-at-home order goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. Sunday for 11 Southern California counties after the region's intensive care unit capacity went below the state's 15% threshold.
The Southern California region consists of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, Imperial, Inyo, Mono, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
Riverside County remains above the 15% threshold, but due to the average of the region, it'll still have to obey the regional health order, which has upset many business owners and employees.
Under the order, in-person dining, nail salons, hair salons and gyms will have to close for at least three weeks.
"I'm a bartender and server at Law's and I do hair as well. Come midnight, I will have no income and no job," said Sarah Pearson, who works at Law's Restaurant in Riverside. "I have two separate avenues to make an income and they're both being taken from me."
Governor Gavin Newsom, who set the mandate, has taken heat from all sides after he was caught attending a birthday dinner party at a restaurant.
"There's a lot of hypocrisy. That's because the people making the rules don't own a restaurant. They don't know what going on," said Michael Huddleston, the owner of Law's Restaurant.
Despite the anger from some locals in Riverside County, officials said the numbers there are still concerning.
"The numbers in Riverside county are going up. There's no denying that. Whether Los Angeles county is going up at a different rate or not, really in Riverside County, the numbers are going at a rate that should be alarming to the residents," said Jose Arballo, spokesperson of the Riverside County Department of Public Health.
The Southern California region will be eligible to exit from the order on December 28 if ICU capacity projections for the following month are above or equal to 15%, according to the state.
Registered Nurse, Vanessa St. Clair, said she believes the order has the right intent to keep people at home and help prevent hospitals from getting too packed.
"I don't believe it was meant to punish Californians or punish people from for the whole United States," St. Clair said. "It truly was so we don't overwhelm our hospital systems, and they are overwhelmed right now."
The Riverside County Department of Public Health says it has seen at least six straight days of record numbers of hospitalization.
