Our cases are quite high these days in the metro entirely between all the counties. Hospital capacity is measured by the combined systems within the metro so one hospital system may be experiencing issues but another may not. They do break down the numbers more specifically for our county but from what I've read there have been situations where other hospitals in the metro have had to send patients to hospital systems in my county but we haven't had to necessarily do the same (yet at least from what I last read). They also said they were getting patients from a few hours away. These are for a variety of patients being moved around.
Our county met today and opted to extend the mask mandate. This is the first time for my county, presently that is, that the mask mandate will now be separate from the state. Counties can opt out of the state mask mandate, my county has opted in since the beginning (July 2nd) but the state mandate will run out on Sunday and I haven't heard about extending the state of emergency (which can only be renewed 1 time every 30 days) but maybe that will come tomorrow (who knows). I had expressed in another thread that I wish the mask mandate would be extended further out anyways to at least mid-January so at least for my area right now that will be the case (though it's to the end of January).
Anyways the county also opted to add in "reduce gatherings to 50 people or 50 percent capacity" (the OR part is fairly important) and does not "explicitly apply to bars, restaurants, and retailers." Rather it's weddings, funerals (edited) and other such things they are targeting. However a caveat is the following: e=people "can submit a safety plan to the county for consideration." if someone wishes to hold a gathering that would be over the cap. (ETA: newer update: "retailers, churches, bars, restaurants, fitness centers, health care organizations and funeral and burial services are exempt from the capacity order, however additional requirements such as locker room closures may be included.". "Also exempt are election polling places, licensed child care facilities, schools and activities within purview of schools and court facilities."
The county next to me that is mainly a college town has done in the past bars closing at 10pm (haven't kept up if they re-added that) but they opted to reduce their gatherings to 15 people in the last few days.
Back to my county they opted to require restaurants, bars and other places that sell alcohol to close its in-facility hours at midnight (ETA: and must remain closed for at least 4 hours), but drive-thru, carry-out and delivery options would be available. The timing is really irrelevant whether it's 9pm, 10pm or midnight even though yes it makes little sense from contracting the virus standpoint. They are just picking a time to try and encourage people to leave rather than stick around longer with masks off (as you would be drinking/eating). I think it would be better if places spell out why the time is chosen because you can just as easily contract the virus at 10pm as you can at 9:55pm (or whatever random time).
Schools and churches are exempt from the new order (see new edits). The order also passed 4 to 3 so close. The adjustments listed above are effective from November 16th-January 31st.
At the moment these adjustments seem fine. The Public Health Officer stated: "My strongest urge for this is that we find something we can live with, that we can enforce, and that people in the community can do because we are in a crisis now and that I think is most important, recommendations we feel are acceptable in this area." In a nutshell they recognize something has to be done but don't necessarily agree (at the moment at least) that the restrictions during stay at home orders/phased reopenings are what they feel is best at this time. A lot of people have discussed enforcements, and economic strains. These seem to keep the restrictions as a middle ground rather than doing a 180 from being open to being closed.
ETA: They just added to the article: "County attorneys are drafting a civil penalty to fine businesses up to $500 per violation of the order." Additional ETA related to enforcement: "It would be generally only enforceable in unincorporated areas. And, while all cities are included in the order, cities within the county could decide to enforce it or not. Additional enforcement possibilities will be discussed later next week."
