LAKE COUNTY — Nail salons, tattoo parlors and massage therapy businesses will be allowed to reopen in Lake County beginning Friday, the county’s top health official said during a Tuesday meeting.
New guidance outlining safety precautions for these business types was issued June 12 by the state, authorizing county public health officials to approve their reopening as soon as Friday, if they deem fit.
During a board of supervisors meeting Tuesday morning, Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace announced he would do just that, citing the county’s relatively strong position regarding coronavirus infections.
“We’ll go ahead and give the green light for that because we’re doing so well,” Pace said.
Nail salons, massage therapy and tattoo parlors had been left out of previous shelter-in-place rollbacks, creating questions for many in those industries about why they were still asked to close while similar businesses, like hair salons, could reopen.
With the vast majority of Lake County businesses either already allowed to reopen or poised to do so this week, Pace drew attention to some of the few activities that are still restricted: large gatherings and events.
“It seems like the main thing that’s left is large group activities and big events,” Pace said, noting that clear guidance has not been yet issued by the state regarding the resumption of such activities. He went on to add that for the moment, he is suggesting group activities be limited to smaller numbers of people, with the likelihood that later in the summer larger groups will be more suitable if coronavirus conditions remain stable.
Leaders of these activities should “plan small,” Pace said, and employ adequate social distancing measures, ideally locating their events outside.
“I’m usually encouraging people to aim for 25 people event(s) now,” he added.
By Tuesday, Lake County had confirmed 34 cases of the coronavirus, four of which were active. As testing capacity has increased, the rate of positive test results has remained fairly stable—a sign that the virus is not greatly accelerating in its spread. At the writing of this article, nearly 3,600 tests had been performed on Lake County residents, meaning fewer than 1 percent of those tested had been confirmed to have the virus.
“We are continuing at the same rate in terms of the infection,” Pace noted Tuesday.
Possible homeless care facility in Lakeport
As reopening continues, two homeless care programs that have been operating in Lake County during the coronavirus pandemic are set to end this month, but county leaders may set up a more permanent homeless shelter to replace them.
The board of supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to send a request for bids from agencies that could operate such a facility, which would be located at the former Lake County Juvenile Hall in Lakeport.
According to Lake County Social Services Director Crystal Markytan, the county could use existing outside funds meant to address homelessness to initiate the shelter, then take advantage of coronavirus relief funding to “backfill” those costs and fund continued operations. In the longer term, more grants would be needed to sustain the project.
Two populations of houseless people, one currently staying in hotel rooms through the state-sponsored Project Roomkey, and another staying in the former Record-Bee building, which is being used for a project called Hope Harbor, would be transferred to the juvenile hall building for continued support.
“We don’t want to see this as only a temporary response. We want to see this as a long-term solution,” Markytan said, citing a recent homeless population count that identified over 500 individuals living without homes in Lake County on a single day.
District 4 Supervisor Tina Scott, who helped bring the topic before the board on Tuesday and has supported both Project Roomkey and Hope Harbor, said there is momentum toward beginning to solve the county’s homelessness issues right now. Both these projects have found jobs and homes for some of the individuals they’ve sheltered already, and the juvenile hall project would continue that work, she indicated.
“It’s really an exciting time, that we are moving people in the right direction—getting them services and help and getting them back to being productive members of our society,” Scott said.
