Riverside County News Release
Effective March 17, Riverside County advances into state’s red reopening tier, paving way for more businesses to return indoors
The California Department of Public Health today moved Riverside County into the red tier of the state’s reopening framework, allowing for more businesses to resume indoor operations. The move is based on the county’s steadily declining coronavirus cases (6.1 case rate), percentage of positive tests (3.3%) and health equity metric (3.7%).
Effective Wednesday (March 17), restaurants and movie theaters may return to indoor operations up to 25 percent capacity or 100 people (whichever is fewer). Museums, zoos and aquariums may return indoors up to 25 percent capacity. Gyms and fitness centers may return indoors up to 10 percent capacity. In addition, retail stores and shopping malls may increase capacity to 50 percent.
“We’ve waited a long time for more of our local businesses to increase operations or return to serving more customers indoors. Many businesses were negatively impacted beyond what we thought possible,” said Board Chair Karen Spiegel, Second District Supervisor. “Today’s news about moving into the red tier is a positive and hopeful sign of more great things to come. If we continue to work together, we can keep this momentum going. We can reopen safely and continue to see our numbers fall, if we all do our part to keep coronavirus at bay.”
Moving into the red tier also allows intermediate and high schools to return to in-person instruction with approved safety plans in place.
Riverside County will need to remain in the red tier for a minimum of three weeks and meet the orange tier metrics for two of those weeks before advancing further.
