Governor Newsom held a press conference Sunday March 15 stepping up measures to combat the spread of COVID-19. The City of Costa Mesa urges the public and business community to closely follow these guidelines.

Key Points 

It is important to focus on the highest priority needs during any emergency. At this point in time, we all need to collectively prioritize our efforts to protect the most vulnerable. This guidance provides details regarding the statewide efforts we should all employ going forward.

Protect the Most Vulnerable

• The Governor’s guidelines focused specifically on the 5.3 million seniors who are vulnerable, those with chronic conditions of any age and individuals experiencing homelessness.
• The Governor called for home isolation of all seniors in the State of California for those 65 years and older and individuals with chronic conditions. The guidance is to minimize contact with others as much as possible.
• Visitation to senior facilities will be restricted further to only allow end-of-life visitations.

Reduce Contact in Public places

• All bars, nightclubs, wineries, and brewpubs are to shut down, presumably through March 31 in accordance with the Governor’s public gatherings direction from March 11. The March 31 date may be extended.
• Restaurants and grocery stores can remain open, however, restaurants are to reduce occupancy levels by half and make arrangements for social distancing.
• The Governor is sharpening his focus on assisting businesses during this time through unemployment, disability insurance and through the Small Business Administration. Other resources will be explored to help businesses get through this difficult time.

What Costa Mesa is doing

• We want the Costa Mesa community to know that the City is taking strong and proactive measures to protect vulnerable populations and reduce the risk of the spread of COVID-19. It’s also important to remember to prepare, check in on relatives and friends. We must also remember to show compassion toward our neighbors.
• In an abundance of caution, the City of Costa Mesa is making a major shift in our city’s operations as we continue to address the COVID-19 health crisis as follows.

City Facilities closed to public

• Starting Monday, March 16 many city facilities, including City Hall and community centers, will be closed to the public. Our city leadership team is currently developing plans for the provision of essential city services and will be providing services to the public online, via telephone and through our website in order to follow the Governor’s guidance and reduce the potential spread of COVID-19. The following operational changes will be effective Monday, March 16, through the end of April, or until further notice. Open space venues will remain open to the public, including parks and golf courses.
• Please know that our residents, businesses and community partners are extremely important to us. We are going to do everything we can to help you during this difficult time. We are going to work on helping to minimize this disruption to our daily lives as much as possible. We are putting into place disaster recovery efforts to help secure disaster relief funding to the greatest extent possible.
• Our team is monitoring all federal and state resources for disaster relief. Our finance team is going to be sending instructions to businesses to assess economic damages related to this incident. This is precisely why we took the bold action to be the first in the county to declare a local emergency. Please go to the Small Business Administration for additional resources.
• Finally, know that your City leaders and public safety officials are prepared to deal with the crisis, and we are working day and night to get us through these difficult and uncertain times.