Starting Friday, May 8, California will begin reopening some stores. With these new guidelines, bookstores, music stores, toy stores, florists, sporting good retailers and others will be able to reopen with a curbside pick-up process. The businesses that are allowed to reopen are said to be at lower risk for the transmission of COVID-19 so long as they follow the guidelines set by the government and health officials. 

“If counties want to do more, they must first meet certain requirements for hospital beds, testing kits and the ability to track infected individuals and trace their contacts,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in his May 4 press conference.

Yuba and Sutter Counties eased restrictions the weekend of May 1 and Modoc County allowed everything to reopen as there have been no cases there. Newsom has begun to ease the guidelines as the state has met some preliminary benchmarks that have allowed the expansion of curbside pickup.

“This is a very positive sign and it’s happened only for one reason: The data says it can happen,” Newsom said.