SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – The stay-at-home order impacting seven Bay Area counties has been extended through May 3 in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus, officials confirmed Tuesday.

The extended order also comes with new instructions for residents and essential businesses.

The previous three-week stay-at-home order was set to expire on April 7.

Health officials said the first order has been effective in reducing the rate of transmission of coronavirus, but they also said it is not enough.

The counties under the extended order include Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Sonoma.

Sonoma County joined the other six counties in extending the shelter in place on Tuesday evening.

Like the previous order, the new order requires people to stay at home except for doing essential activities, such as grocery shopping.

The extension adds some clarifying language around essential business and activities, as well as some new directives, including:

  • Use of playgrounds, dog parks, public picnic areas, and similar recreational areas is prohibited. These areas must be closed to public use.
  • Use of shared public recreational facilities such as golf courses, tennis and basketball courts, pools, and rock walls is prohibited. These facilities must be closed for recreational use.
  • Sports requiring people to share a ball or other equipment must be limited to people in the same household
  • Requires essential businesses to develop a social distancing protocol before April 3
  • Most construction—residential and commercial—is prohibited
  • Funerals limited to no more than 10 people attending
  • Essential businesses expanded to include service providers that enable residential transactions (notaries, title companies, Realtors, etc.); funeral homes and cemeteries; moving companies, rental car companies and rideshare services that specifically enable essential activities
  • Essential businesses that continue to operate facilities must scale down operations to their essential component only

Bay Area counties – Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara – announced last week school closures would be extended through May 1.

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