Shelter-in-Place Orders are Extended Across the San Francisco Bay Area

Effective May 3, 2020, the following San Francisco Bay Area counties will extend their existing shelter-in-place orders through May 31, 2020: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, Santa Clara, and San Mateo.

What’s New in the Extended Orders

In addition to extending the shelter-in-place orders, the counties have relaxed the closing and shutdown of some types of businesses, specifically construction and outdoor businesses.

The most dramatic change is that construction and outdoor businesses may reopen.

Construction is divided into two classes: small construction or large construction projects.

Small Construction is defined as:

• Single, multifamily, senior, student or other residential construction, renovation, or remodel consisting of 10 units or less,
• Commercial projects including construction, renovation, or tenant improvement consisting of 20,000 square feet of floor area or less, and
• Mixed-use projects that meet the criteria above in some way.

Large Construction is defined as:

• Single, multifamily, senior, student or other residential construction, renovation, or remodel consisting of more than 10 units,
• Commercial projects including construction, renovation, or tenant improvement consisting of more than 20,000 square feet of floor area, and
• Any Essential Infrastructure (airports, utilities, oil refining, roads and highways, public transportation, solid waste facilities, cemeteries, mortuaries, crematoriums, and telecommunications systems) project that requires five or more workers on the jobsite at any one time.

New Rules For Specific Businesses

All Construction, no matter the size of the project, must follow strict protocols each with more than 20 steps to implement which can be found in Appendix B-1 and B-2 of each county’s order. The protocols in B-1 and B-2 are extensive. Special care should be taken to review and comply with these protocols.

Outdoor Business is defined as a business that primarily operates outdoors such as wholesale and retail plant nurseries, agricultural operations, garden centers; and service providers that primarily  provide outdoor services such as landscaping and gardening services and environmental site remediation services.

Updated and Extended Rules

All Essential Businesses and Outdoor Businesses (both those who have been operating and will now reopen) must do the following:

1. Prepare, update, post, implement and distribute to their personnel a Social Distancing Protocol such as:
   • Post signage at each public entrance to inform all employees and customers that they should avoid entering the facility if they have COVID-19 symptoms.
   • Maintain a minimum of six-foot distance from one another.
   • Sneeze and cough into a cloth, tissue or one’s elbow.
   • Wear face coverings.
   • Avoid shaking hands or engaging in unnecessary physical contact.
2. Implement as many of the following recommended measures as feasible:
   • Regularly disinfect spaces including break rooms, restrooms, and other common areas.
   • Regularly disinfect supplies available to all employees,
   • Symptom check before employees enter the work space.
   • Separate work stations by at least six feet.
   • Provide employees with hand sanitizer and soap and water.
   • Limit the number of customers at any one time to prevent crowds from gathering.
3. Scale down operations to only that which is essential and have outdoor components.

All persons over the age of 12 are required to wear face masks pursuant to the extended shelter-in-place orders and county health orders regarding face coverings. For example, Alameda County Order No. 20-08 found here details that masks shall be worn when interacting with others outside the home such as in lines while shopping, riding transit, and working as an essential provider.

Continuing Rules

• Social distancing of at least six feet remains mandatory.
• Transit and travel remains limited and persons on transit shall wear face coverings.
• Businesses are again encouraged to operate but do so by “maximiz[ing] the number of personnel who work from home.”
• Private and public gatherings of those outside those persons already sheltering-in-place together remains prohibited.

Failure to comply with the shelter-in-place orders is still punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both.