Some coronavirus restrictions eased in Sonoma County, but road ahead marked by uncertainty

Back in the saddle of his trusty 10-speed, cruising the Joe Rodota Trail each morning, Bob Atkins has been savoring the taste of freedom.

Like thousands of Sonoma County residents offered a chance beginning Wednesday to get back into local parks and onto park trails after six weeks of all but being locked indoors, the 73-year-old Santa Rosa man lost no time before exploiting it.

He's been out every day since, pedaling miles from home and back again, passing a few other cyclists and runners and lots of people walking - physically distanced and their faces masked as they strode into the open air.

“I'm really happy,” said Atkins, a retired industrial engineer. “I feel like we're into the start of the next phase now.”

It was that kind of week - one full of signs that the long pause the county and all of America has been enduring because of the coronavirus may actually come to a conclusion at some point, though not right away and not without adapting to new ways of being in the world.

Parks are bustling again. Golf is back on the menu. Public schools may not just open next fall, they might open early.

And underpinning it all is recognition that California and, especially, Sonoma County have so successfully suppressed transmission of the virus that the long-awaited surge in illnesses and hospitalizations will likely be averted altogether.

The locally low infection rate allowed Dr. Sundari Mase, the county health officer, to ease restrictions on certain activities and segments of the economy Friday, including all landscaping, car sales, ornamental plant retail and the full range of construction and related trades.

It also means golfers can hit the links again, finally satisfying a very vocal stakeholder group that's been relentlessly urging officials to lift restrictions.

The improved outlook for local transmission also spurred Mase to revise her earlier park order, authorizing county residents to walk or cycle to nearby regional and municipal parks and paved trails for exercise. All coastal beaches, parks and trails remain off limits, and river beaches also are closed to swimming and water sports.

The shift nonetheless lent new energy to those lucky enough to live close enough to a public space to take advantage. It also recognizes the critical role of outdoor exercise and time in nature in helping people to maintain physical and mental well-being.

The soft opening of the parks offers “a glimmer of hope,” former Regional Parks Director Caryl Hart said.

“We're looking for anything that's going to break through this cloud that's settled on top of us - it's like a fog - and any time there's any good news, it's just sort of piercing through,” she said.

Naomi Fuchs, chief executive officer for Santa Rosa Community Health, said there was ever so slight an uptick in visits between last week and the week before - not quite 5% - that it's possible patients are feeling a bit more comfortable about coming in for routine visits or even those that are not so routine.

That's good, she said, because so many safety protocols have been implemented that patients should feel they can seek help for any and all needs without fear of being exposed to the coronavirus. Like other area clinics, patients no longer wait inside, for instance, and are checked for fever and symptoms before they come to appointments.

But doctors are still worried that people might be skipping immunizations, maternity care, diabetes treatment and cardiac checks and will put themselves at risk for other problems, unnecessarily, she said.

“We want people to come back and start getting care,” Fuchs said. “We're set up to do that safely. We've been working on that for the last six weeks, and we really have it down.”

Santa Rosa Community Health, which serves 42,000 patients a year, or about 900 a day, across eight clinic sites under normal circumstances, also has financial considerations to think about.

Like many other health care institutions, it's been hard by the pandemic, furloughing about 60 of 500 employees, Fuchs said.

It's taken hard work to stem further losses and to stay afloat.

At the same time, conservative measures “are keeping us safe,” she said.

But despite a somewhat sunnier outlook than even a week or two ago, public officials are cautious about assuming the forecast is any brighter than it is. The number of confirmed local cases continues to inch upward, though so far at a pace well short of the spikes seen in virus hot spots around the country.

On Saturday, the county announced four new cases of COVID-19, for a total of 252 residents confirmed to have been sickened by the virus. Of that number, 128 have recovered and two people have died. As of Friday, Sonoma County hospitals were treating four confirmed coronavirus patients and 15 suspected cases, according to state data, with one confirmed and four suspected cases being handled by intensive care units.

Mase has said the number of cases will continue to rise, saying last week that “I fully predict we'll have more cases, so I don't think we've turned the corner.”

The coronavirus still remains a threat, and the economic disaster that has unfolded alongside the pandemic has left substantial suffering in its wake that will linger for months, if not years, to come.

More than 24,000 people in Sonoma County had filed unemployment claims by mid-April, and Sonoma State University economist Robert Eyler told county supervisors last week the unemployment rate could reach 15% within a week.

A survey by nonprofit First 5 Sonoma County found that 10% of English- speaking households and 43% of Spanish-speaking families reported losing all income since the county shutdown.

The county has been so overwhelmed by applications for food assistance it has had to prioritize those earning less than $150 a month and who have less than $100 to their name - and there are hundreds, a county officials said.

At a time of year when most families are in the crescendo at the end of the school year, planning class parties and graduation celebrations, summer trips and family reunions, calendars remain bare. Even iconic local events, like the Sonoma County Fair and Taste of Sonoma in September, are off the docket because of the pandemic.

So while states like Georgia are trying to resume business as usual, and pressure to do so elsewhere around the country is mounting, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has made it clear he foresees months more of careful planning and preparation before the full scope of business activity can resume. He also wants to ensure with each step forward that the health care infrastructure can keep pace with any rise in COVID-19 cases that occur as people mix more freely then they have been over the past six weeks.

Newsom's framework assumes four stages, each with fewer restrictions in the existing stay-home order, with the state currently in Stage 1: Making essential workforce environments as safe as possible.

Stage 2 addresses adaptations needed to make safe low-risk workplaces, like retail stores that can offer curbside sales, offices and industrial sites, as well as schools and child care settings.

Stage 3 involves making higher-risk operations safe, including closer-contact businesses like hair and nail salons, movie theaters and religious services.

Stage 4 represents a return to an expanded workforce and includes allowances for mass events like concerts and conventions. It marks the end of the stay-home order.

But while Newsom said Friday the second stage could come within the next week, depending on what he sees in terms of cases and continued physical distancing habits, it's likely to be “months, not weeks” before California reaches the latter two stages.

Barry Friedman, chief executive officer of Friedman's Home Improvement, has been working with a group of community leaders in Sonoma County on a similar framework for restarting the local economy that takes into account the importance of economic health, as well public safety.

“Now is not the time to let our guard down, right?” he said.

He said he recognizes that it's a privilege that his company, which employs 630 people across four stores, has been permitted to remain open as an “essential business” during the extended stay-home period and said he has tremendous faith in the ability of others to adapt appropriately after seeing what has been accomplished by those, like his, that have continued operating.

Besides just requiring masks and physical distancing, he saw proprietors adopting sneeze guards, reduced limits on those allowed in stores at a given time, floor marks for those waiting in line and other precautionary measures adopted even before the county health order required written protocols.

“Businesses will be up to the challenge, and it's our responsibility to think, ‘How best do we serve our customers now in creating that safe environment?' That's on the businesses to figure out how that is, and I would imagine now many businesses are thinking about how they can best serve customers in this changing dynamic,” he said.

“I know we are. It's not business as usual, and I think that's going forward.”

But the wait may be too long for Windsor resident Katherine Goldman to wait. Goldman and her husband own nine Stript Wax Bars in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, all closed, their collective 45 workers furloughed and rent still due.

They missed out on the first round of federal Paycheck Protection loans issued by the Small Business Administration but applied under the second round and remain hopeful, Goldman said.

But in the meantime, between doing her share of homeschooling their 7- and 9-year-old kids and trying to keep their business “floating, because we don't know where it's going to go at the moment,” Goldman has put together a line of newly formulated natural skin- and hair-care products, as well as a few home cleaning products, and is working on packaging and web design so she can launch soon.

She's working harder than ever, she said.

“It's all just very unknown,” Goldman said. “We're trying to do the best we can and just kind of roll with what's been given to us, but every day has its own unique challenges.”

Brauley McNulty, owner of Daredevils & Queens Salon in Santa Rosa's Railroad Square, can relate.

Twenty-three people work in her salon, all independent contractors who have had difficulty collecting unemployment benefits.

The governor's words - “not weeks, but months” - rang in her ears as she talked with a reporter and she thought of the families trying to get by and the rent and mortgages owed.

And it's not just that: Hairdressers are creative, gregarious types who thrive on the interaction and relationships built.

“I have clients asking me every day to open,” McNulty said. “We have been licensed by the state to control infectious disease. We know how to keep our stuff clean.”

Her 10- and 14-year-old boys, once thrilled to have school closed, are now thinking that it might not be so bad to be back on campus. And she thinks about all of the families who live with dysfunction, and for whom being home might not be safe.

At 18, Santa Rosa Junior College freshman Katrina Frandsen retains a cheery disposition, though in fact, she's lost a fair amount in recent weeks.

A dedicated runner, she saw her spring cross- country season canceled after two meets and her classes transferred to remote instruction mid-semester, which she concedes is an inferior alternative.

She also lost her job at Fleet Feet running store. And she's 18. Sheltering in place. At 18.

Then last week, she learned that the junior college would continue remote instruction through the end of the fall semester, when she's supposed to be taking two lab classes, chemistry and anatomy, for her kinesiology studies. It also means her track season is probably canceled, as well.

She had been running every day at a local park until the parks were closed, and after learning that paved streets gave her shin splints, started riding a bicycle during shelter-in-place.

She is delighted she can now ride a bike to some parks and run, if she can figure out how to lock her bike.

But she knows there are others who are truly suffering uncertainty and pain.

“We're just hanging in there, feeling a little trapped, but grateful that they opened up the parks,” she said.

“It's like my mom says: We're all in the same storm, but we're not in the same boat.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.