yesterday Gov. Newsom unveiled new rules for reopening businesses in California. the state's first attempt at reopening led to a big surge in coronavirus cases, especially in LA. here's how this more cautious approach will work

Newsom is scrapping the infamous watch list. now, every county is assigned a risk category based on the prevalence of the virus in their community. yellow is minimal spread, orange is moderate, red is substantial and purple is widespread. most places in California are purple

the colors correspond to what's allowed to open. in LA, you can't go inside a restaurant or gym, but in San Diego, which is in the next tier, you can do those things. and in Shasta County, which is another tier up, you can do outdoor seating at bars -- not allowed in LA or SD

to move to the next tier, you need to meet certain metrics for two weeks straight. in LA, we're meeting one criterion to move to the red zone -- our positivity rate is 5% -- but are reporting 13 new cases daily per 100k residents. red requires <7, and for two weeks straight

when counties do take a step forward, Newsom is requiring that they then wait 3 weeks to move to the next phase. and you can't skip any steps.

so if COVID levels in LA County dropped to nearly zero tomorrow, it would still be at least 9 weeks before we could move into yellow

Newsom acknowledged that this was a place where they've changed the strategy. opening up too many sectors too fast has been seen as a reason why cases surged so high in June and July -- slow and steady is the goal now

ahem https://www.latimes.com/projects/how-rushed-la-reopening-sparked-covid-19-cases/

here's what each step looks like --

purple: bars & offices totally closed; outdoor-only for restaurants, nail salons, museums, churches, movie theaters, gyms

red: bars & offices closed; limited indoor operations for restaurants, salons, museums, churches, movie theaters, gyms

orange: bars can open for outdoor seating; offices can open but telework is encouraged; restaurants, museums, churches and movie theaters can have more people indoors (50% capacity instead of 25% with red); gyms can have more people (25% capacity instead of 10% with red)

yellow: bars can open indoors, at 50% capacity; gyms can increase to 50% capacity and open their saunas/spas.

it seems like getting from orange to yellow requires a pretty big drop in cases, but doesn't allow that many changes in what's open, at least from a consumer perspective

so what happens if stuff opens but then the virus starts spreading a lot? if a county fails to meet the metrics for its tier for two weeks straight, it will have to drop down to the lower tier