San Bernardino County is on track to move to the less-restrictive orange tier of the state’s reopening plan by next Tuesday, based on updated figures released Tuesday (March 30) — and it could happen even sooner. The county entered the red tier March 14 and could meet the requirement of fewer than 4.0 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people as soon as Tuesday, April 6. The county could also qualify for reopening if 4 million doses of coronavirus vaccines are administered statewide in communities identified by state officials as socioeconomically disadvantaged. Once that threshold is hit, the criteria become less strict, and the county could enter the orange tier several days earlier. San Bernardino County’s case rate when adjusted for the number of coronavirus tests is 3.8 per 100,000, while its test positivity rate is 2.1% and the rate in disadvantaged neighborhoods is 2.2% — both comfortably within the reopening requirements. Once the county is in the orange tier, bars will be able to serve patrons outside; restaurants, museums, places of worship and movie theaters will be able to increase indoor capacity from 25% to 50%; and gyms and fitness centers can move from 10% to 25% capacity, among other changes.
The county confirmed 88 more coronavirus cases Tuesday and six more deaths, for a total of 4,000 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began. Hospitalizations continued to drop, with 117 patients in county hospitals with confirmed COVID-19, down 28.7% from a week earlier. San Bernardino County also moved to seventh statewide in the number of people hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19, with Fresno County and Stanislaus County — which both have considerably smaller populations than San Bernardino County’s 2.2 million people — moving ahead of it. All of the counties with more COVID-19 hospitalizations than San Bernardino County also have more residents.
