By KATHLEEN RONAYNE AND DON THOMPSON
Gen Til wears a protective face mask while working out at Planet Granite climbing gym in San Francisco. The gym opened Thursday to allow 10% capacity. A sign reading “Welcome Back Now Open” is posted on the window of a Morton’s Steakhouse restaurant as a man works inside Thursday in San Francisco.
It all puts California in a drastically different position than a year ago, when Newsom imposed the statewide stay-at-home order that restricted travel, shuttered businesses and forced millions of people onto unemployment. California still has among the most severe restrictions of any state and continues to discourage out-of-state visitors.
Even as Gov. Gavin Newsom outlined the new policies Thursday, he struck a more cautious than optimistic tone, urging Californians to start wearing two masks. “We can’t reopen our economy until we get this pandemic safely behind us,” the Democratic governor said from a vaccination site in Stockton. Still, California’s coronavirus situation has improved with dizzying speed.
The rate of people testing positive for the infection has fallen to 2.1% in the last week, the lowest level of the pandemic. Hospitalizations that topped out at nearly 22,000 in early January are down to 4,500 now and projected to […]
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