What does shelter at home mean? Here’s when you can leave house during SLO County order
Now all of California is under a shelter-at-home order, you may be wondering: What exactly can I do?
The answer? Actually, quite a lot.
Though the order to shelter at home sounds very severe, San Luis Obispo County public health officer Dr. Penny Borenstein said it’s not necessarily as strict as it sounds.
“What I don’t want people to think this is means is there is a chemical or radiological event that means you have to hunker down in your homes and never leave,” Borenstein said in a media briefing Thursday afternoon. “There’s a bit of misnomer with this notion of shelter at home. It largely means that we are asking the public to participate with us in the enhancement of social distancing.”
Social distancing has been pushed as one of the chief ways to stop the spread of infectious diseases like coronavirus.
By limiting contact with other people who might transmit the disease, health officials say, we can slow the spread of the outbreak, freeing up essential time and resources to care for those who have already been infected.
In San Luis Obispo County, where natural beauty is abundant, Borenstein said people are still encouraged to go outside and perform activities they enjoy — they should just try to avoid doing that with people they don’t live with.
“People should go outside,” she added. “They should go for walks. They should garden. They should do their landscaping. They just shouldn’t do it with strangers.”
So outdoor activities such as surfing, hiking, biking or other sports are OK, as long as the contact with other people is minimal.
What should stop are activities like meeting friends for drinks or gatherings where you would come in contact with people you don’t live with. This applies even to small, one-on-one meetings, Borenstein said.
Basically, brunch is out.
There are some gray areas when it comes to visiting family members, especially elderly relatives who would be most at risk if they were to contract coronavirus, Borenstein said.
“With respect to visiting grandparents, bringing together families for Easter dinner, we’re not going to be policing that,” she said. “We ask people to take best precautions to recognize who the highest risk people are.”
Individual families can decide whether they wish to gather — but Borenstein urged them to take into account a person’s age, health and other underlying conditions that may make them more at risk if they were to catch coronavirus.
People should also continue to go to medical appointments — both routine, if their doctor is still taking appointments, and emergency.
Other acceptable reasons to leave home include caring for pets or going shopping for groceries or household supplies.
“This isn’t really about, there is something in the air that by virtue of leaving your house that puts you at risk,” Borenstein concluded. “It is simply stay away from people who can transmit the disease.”
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