California to drop social distancing requirements in June

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California no longer will require social distancing and will allow full capacity for businesses when the state reopens on June 15, the state's top health official said Friday.

State health director Dr. Mark Ghaly said that dramatically lower virus cases and increasing vaccinations mean it’s safe for the state to remove nearly all restrictions next month.

“Something very important happens on June 15 In California,” Ghaly said. “We are now at a point, given our metrics that we’ve been watching, that California is at a place where we can begin to talk about moving beyond the blueprint,” the state's color-coded, four-tier system that that has restricted activities based on each county’s virus prevalence.

Limits on how many people can be inside businesses at any one time, “which have been a hallmark” of the safety plan, will disappear, he said. “Physical distancing, there will no longer be restrictions for attendees, customers and guests in business sectors.”

That won't mean an abrupt end to wearing masks, he said, but it will mean the state will adjust its guidelines to correspond to national guidelines.

Officials already announced this week that they would wait until mid-June to follow the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention new mask guidelines that say it’s safe for fully vaccinated people to skip face coverings and social distancing in virtually all situations. The federal guidelines state that everyone should still wear masks in crowded indoor locations such as airplanes, buses, hospitals and prisons.

California’s workforce regulators are separately developing safety rules that will continue to apply to employers, Ghaly said.

“We have weathered the storm and I am hopeful that this finally signals our return to normalcy,” said Los...