LA County Expects to Move From the Red to the Orange Tier in Early April, Rapidly Easing Lockdown Restrictions

Los Angeles County may be moving into the Orange Tier of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions in early April if case numbers continue to remain at their current low levels. The county finally moved out of the most restrictive Purple Tier on March 22, after a full year in that situation. If new case numbers remain low, the county may only remain in the next, Red Tier, for only a few weeks. The County needs to maintain less than 3.9 cases per 100k people for three weeks in order to move down tiers.

The basic change under the Orange Tier is that businesses and other places where people gather can increase their capacity. Retail and houses of worship that currently can allow 25% capacity will be able to increase that to 50% capacity. This includes indoor dining at restaurants. Indoor gyms that currently can allow 10% capacity can increase to 25%.

Some of the lesser restrictions of the Orange Tier are already available to Los Angeles County. Outdoor bars were opened today and indoor bars that serve food were allowed to open at 25% capacity, the same as restaurants. The county was already going to be allowed to open outdoor sporting events and concerts at reduced capacity even if in the Purple Tier. Capacity at such events will be increased if the county moves into the Orange Tier.

In a County of 10 million people, 1, 215,129 of them are known to have contracted Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. 22,871 of those known to have Covid-19 died. An estimated 1.3 million people in the county lost their jobs during the lockdown restrictions.