This afternoon, the California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly gave a press conference about reopening guidelines for California attractions. At the press conference, he talked about theme parks and sports stadiums. With the strict guidelines that we saw Ghaly speak about, we may not see major theme parks reopen for quite some time.
Here are the guidelines from the updated Blueprint for a Safer Economy:
• Purple – Widespread – Tier 1: All operations must be closed.
• Red – Substantial – Tier 2: All operations must be closed.
• Orange – Moderate – Tier 3: Operations are permitted only for smaller parks (see definition below) and those operators must implement the following modifications:
Smaller parks are defined as parks with overall capacity fewer than 15,000 based on the design/operating capacity or fire department occupant limit.
Capacity must be limited to 25% of total facility occupancy based on the design/operating capacity or fire department occupant limit – whichever is fewer – or 500 people, whichever is fewer.
Only outdoor attractions are permitted to open; all other indoor attractions must remain closed.
Ticket sales must be limited only to those visitors who reside in the same county as the park’s location.
Operators must follow the modifications in this guidance and must be prepared for inspections by public health officials to ensure adequate implementation of all required modifications. Operators must address and implement any resulting findings and recommendations
• Yellow – Minimal – Tier 4: Operations are permitted for all amusement park operators with the following modifications:
Capacity must be limited to 25% of total facility occupancy based on the design/operating capacity or fire department occupant limit, whichever is fewer.
Capacity on all indoor dining and drinking establishments within the park must be limited to 25%.
Operators must follow the modifications in this guidance and must be prepared for inspections by public health officials to ensure adequate implementation of all required modifications. Operators must address and implement any resulting findings and recommendations.
Based on the definition of smaller parks that we see in tier 3, we can certainly assume that we won’t see Disneyland or Universal Studios Hollywood opening any time soon. In order to get those counties to the yellow tier, each county must see less than one daily new case (per 100K people) and less than 2% health equity metric positivity rate.
At this time, Orange County is in the red tier while Los Angeles is in the purple tier. If you wish to see the entire guidance for amusement and theme parks, you can check out the whole PDF at the link here.
Be sure to stay tuned with us here at DAPS MAGIC as we give you updates from Disney and Universal as they respond to these theme park reopening guidelines from the state of California.
