San Luis Obispo County lifts local COVID-19 health emergency declaration

SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY, Calif. -- San Luis Obispo County on Friday lifted its local health emergency declaration that has been in place since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

The local health emergency declaration allowed county Public Health Officer/Director Dr. Penny Borenstein and County Administrative Officer Wade Horton authority to manage the pandemic crisis and streamline decisions aimed at protecting the community.

"It really has no material effect on members of our community," said Borenstein. "It was to do a number of things to expedite contracts, to order up supplies and materials quickly, to assign disaster services workers and with the downward trajectory of this surge and what we're seeing right now and the expectation that things are going to continue to lower and stay low for quite some time, we felt that now was the right time to make the move."

The local health emergency declaration allowed county Public Health Director Dr. Penny Borenstein and County Administrative Officer Wade Horton authority to manage the pandemic crisis and streamline decisions aimed at protecting the community.

“I very much appreciate the County team, health care professionals, and volunteers who stepped up over a very challenging and divisive couple of years. I also understand the difficult impact the pandemic has had on our community,” Horton said. “Moving forward, I hope we can remember how to extend more grace toward one another as fellow community members as we face future challenges.”

While the declaration is no longer needed, the Public Health Department will continue to respond to the pandemic and provide resources to the community, Borenstein said. “We remain ready to respond to future surges,” she added.

While the State of Emergency ends, Borenstein points out the pandemic is still ongoing. She adds the county's response remains still in place, it's just moved to a smaller scale commensurate to the current scope of the pandemic.

"We still have a high number of cases. We're taking in the information and watching it closely and should things go in bad direction, which we hope not, we can always reinstate it if we needed to," said Borenstein. "We're still addressing cases through outreach and outbreak response in congregate settings. We're doing testing. We're doing vaccination. We're doing community education, so there's not a whole lot that's changing in our response at this time."