Borrego Sun - Since 1949

We are back to the purple tier in the County of San Diego, in fact we’ve been in purple ever since Governor Newsom rescinded the stay-at home order in California. As you probably know by now, by being in the purple tier this allows some businesses to open, including outdoor dining, hair salons and other services. However, many businesses remain closed, or limited by outdoor operations. So, how do we get to the next tier?

I’ve always argued this color-coded system is flawed, especially for a County the size of San Diego. For San Diego County to proceed into the red tier, we would need less than seven people testing positive per 100,000 people. To put that in perspective, if you took two Petco Park’s you would need to have less than seven people testing positive in the entire stadium. Even if we were to get under that threshold, it would only allow restaurants to operate at 25% indoor capacity and gyms to operate at 10%.

In order to get into the orange tier, we would need less than four people testing positive per 100,000. The final tier of the color-coded system is yellow, which requires less than one person testing positive per 100,000. That would only allow indoor dining at 50% capacity and I think give the current system is unachievable.

I believe Governor Newsom needs to change the tiered system to allow more businesses to reopen. The current structure has always been flawed, yet once again we are back in a purple haze.

Jim Desmond

– San Diego County District 5 Supervisor