The inside of Piero’s Pizzavino has been quiet for months, until today.
Riverside County Health officials announced Tuesday afternoon that certain businesses can move into the next reopening phase.
“We just got the news probably 15 minutes ago that we could open up. We’re scrambling to make sense of the inside of our restaurant and plan on being extremely busy today,” said Sheri Pierattoni, manager at Piero’s Pizzavino.
The jump comes as Riverside County data shows the COIVD positivity and case rate are trending in the right direction.
“We continue to see numbers go down for hospitalizations. As of yesterday we had 131 COVID positive hospitalized, 47 in the ICU. That is down from the mid-July peak of 550 COVID positive hospitalized and 167 in the ICU,” said Bruce Barton, Emergency Management Department for Riverside County.
In the red tier, more indoor services are allowed to reopen.
That includes: retail and malls at 50 percent capacity, personal care with specific modifications, museums and zoos at 25 percent capacity and gyms at 10 percent.
“It allows us to bring back our personal training, and that, in and of itself, is a big part of our business,” said Jaime Jimenez, owner of One Eleven Conditioning Club.
The latest reopening phase isn’t permanent.
Other counties like San Diego have been on the verge of moving backwards into the purple, restrictive, category due to their positivity rate.
But Jaime says his gym is prepared for whatever may come next.
“This last shutdown we were able to learn the ins and outs of moving our operation outdoor. If that happens again then we can fully focus on outdoor workouts. The weather is getting better as well so we probably could add more classes if we needed to,” said Jimenez.
To move to the next phase, Riverside County will have to stay successfully within the red requirements for 21 days.
