Written by Julianne Foster
In-home hair cuts are no longer necessary in California since Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the reopening of hair salons and barbershops last week. Individual counties are beginning to receive more power to make the decisions surrounding reopening local businesses since the state has moved even further into phase 2. This wouldn’t have been possible without the diligent commitment of leaders throughout the state, and especially those here in San Diego.
Your voices continue to be heard! Salons and barbershops can now open in San Diego County. 💈
— Supervisor Jim Desmond (@jim_desmond) May 26, 2020
Just as other businesses, salons, and barbershops have received instructions for the modifications they must make to safely reopen their doors.
Each business should come up with a plan for the possibility of any outbreaks within the members working at the salon or barbershop. They must also display safety guidelines for customers to review when they come in. The guidelines must include:
- Customers are required to wear face coverings and use hand sanitizer
- Customers must keep physical distance from other customers
For efficiency, masks with an ear loop are ideal, but the state guidelines suggest that “facilities should provide clean face coverings for staff and customers.”
Workers must wear proper face coverings and be screened at the beginning and end of their shifts. They encourage workers to wear gloves which may be more effective than frequent handwashing and hand sanitizer when handling commonly touched items.
The remainder of the document goes into further detail about proper disinfecting, cleaning protocols, and physical distancing guidelines.
Gov. Newsom tweeted on Friday, that “1.8 million people have been tested in CA for #COVID19. We have seen an average of 4.1% positive tests over the last 2 weeks.”
These numbers correctly correspond with the new county reopening requirements, which call for less than 8% of people testing positive within the county in the past seven days. In California, 47 out of the 58 counties have gone ahead to allow their salons and barbershops to reopen. The other 11 counties have continued to prevent even restaurants and retail stores from reopening for in-dining and shopping services due to their individual concerns with the spread of COVID-19. After a lot of hard work from our local leaders, the state has finally given the freedom to these counties to decide their pace of reopening.
