SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – Bad news for businesses hoping to resume indoor service in San Francisco.
It was announced Thursday that the city will remain on the state’s COVID-19 watch list.
The city of San Francisco’s anticipated release from the state’s COVID-19 watch list didn’t happen, according to officials at the city’s Department of Emergency Management.
“San Francisco is currently not meeting day one of the three-consecutive day threshold. Therefore, we have been informed by the CDPH that San Francisco will not be taken off the watch list at this time.”
“What it really means is that without coming off of the watch list, nothing that is currently closed can reopen,” Dave Karraker said.
Dave Karraker of MX3 Fitness says not coming off the COVID watch list is devastating news for the physical fitness business community.
“The entire physical fitness industry in San Francisco has been closed since March, and the result is people are going out of business. We’ve lost 7 gyms in our fitness coalition in the last 3 weeks,” Karraker said.
Working out indoors being banned, Karraker created this outdoor set up back in July but he says it comes with its own set of problems.
The most recent being smoke from wildfires.
“It doesn’t help when there is a giant fire up north and now the air quality has deteriorated to such a degree that people do not want to work out outside,” Karraker said.
“The real people to blame here is the federal government,” Jay Cheng said.
Officials with the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce say during the pandemic the city’s small business community has seen a 91% decrease in economic activity.
“This is a public health crisis not an economic crisis. Because our city meet the public health threshold, because we do not have the medical support and the tests that we need form the federal government we’re not able to come off the state’s watch list,” Cheng said.
“I can only expect that there is going to be a landslide of more local neighborhood gyms closing,” Karraker said.
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