San Francisco To Delay Next Wave Of Reopenings Amid COVID Spike

San Francisco’s planned next phase reopening scheduled for Monday (June 29) for outdoor bars, hair salons, museums and more has been put on hold.

Mayor London Breed tweeted Friday (June 26) that the city will wait as the number of COVID-19 cases rise across California, CNBC reported.

“Yesterday we saw 103 cases,” Breed wrote. “On June 15, when we first reopened outdoor dining and in-store retail, we had 20. At our current rate, the number could double rapidly. If that continues and we don’t intervene, we’ll be at such a high number that our only option would be to shut down.”

Originally, the city sought state approval to move up the next phase of reopening from mid-July as was previously scheduled, the network reported.

That would have also allowed zoos, outdoor swimming pools, barbershops, tattoo parlors and nail salons to reopen this week.

But coronavirus cases have accelerated in the Golden State, one of nearly three dozen states where cases were growing by 5 percent or more as of Thursday compared with the previous weeks’ totals, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.

As California Gov. Gavin Newsom has left the decision to municipalities on whether to reopen certain parts of their economy, the state reported a nearly 44 percent increase in its weekly average of coronavirus cases, up to 4,861 daily new cases, the report said.

California is not the only state to reconsider its reopening as cases surge.

Last week, Texas walked back its reopening plans. Gov. Greg Abbott said limited capacity rules at restaurants and stores could remain in place, but no further steps would be taken while cases increased.

Last week, there were 4,389 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Texas state, up from 2,793 for the prior week.

The planned reopening of Disneyland Resort in Southern California on July 17 has also been delayed.

“Given the time required for us to bring thousands of cast members back to work and to restart our business, we have no choice but to delay the reopening of our theme park and resort hotels until we receive approval from government officials,” Disney Parks said on Twitter.

In the Great Reopening: Shifting Preference, a PYMNTS survey of  2,064 Amercians revealed 36 percent of consumers were warming to the idea of leaving their homes and resuming their pre-pandemic routines, while 64 percent said they plan to stay indoors for fear of risking contagion.