SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif. (KRON) — San Mateo County and Marin County were moved to the less-restrictive red tier of the state’s reopening plan on Tuesday.

The switch went into effect starting Wednesday at 12:01 a.m.

All other Bay Area counties remain in the purple tier at this time.

COVID-19 rates have been decreasing and counties are opening more vaccination clinics, despite a supply shortage. The California Department of Public Health determines when a county can move between tiers, “any day of the week,” and even more than once a week if necessary.

The state mostly uses average daily case rates per 100,000 people, as well as average percent positivity rates over seven days.

To move to the Red tier, a county must show that its average daily new cases over seven days dropped to 4-7 per 100,000, and its percent positivity rate is 5-8%.

According to the state’s latest COVID update, there were 4,665 newly recorded confirmed cases statewide as of Sunday. The 7-day positivity rate is 3.0% and the 14-day positivity rate is 3.3%.

See where each California county stands with the reopening tiers:

The Red tier allows:

  • Restaurants indoors (max 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer)
  • All retail indoors (max 50% capacity)
  • Shopping centers, swap meets indoors (max 50% capacity, closed common areas, reduced capacity food courts)
  • Personal care services – hair and nail salons, barbershops (open with modifications)
  • Museums, zoos and aquariums (max 25% capacity)
  • Places of worship (max 25% capacity)
  • Movie theaters indoors (max 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer)
  • Gyms and fitness centers indoors (max 10% capacity)
  • Family entertainment centers (kart racing, mini-golf, batting cages) outdoors only with modifications

Small private gatherings are allowed outdoors and indoors with modifications:

  • Masks and physical distancing required
  • No more than three separate households attend (including the host’s)
  • Gatherings should be 2 hours or less
  • Those with symptoms must not attend
  • Those at high risk of severe illness strongly encouraged not to attend
  • Singing, shouting, chanting, cheering, or exercising strongly discouraged outdoors and not permitted indoors

But even while moving to another phase of reopening, officials do not want residents to let their guard down.

For now, it is just three Bay Area counties that seem to be seeing hopeful case trends to shift tiers.

There is significant outreach for disadvantaged communities based on the California Health Places Index, according to chief of San Mateo County Health Louise Rogers.

“Our goal is to drive that disparity, affecting our most impacted communities, to zero.”