Despite a continued increase in COVID cases in Los Angeles County, California has slowly been opening up over the past week. Residents have been asked to stay at home as much as possible, but beaches, parks, hair salons and restaurants are allowed to open with specific safety guidelines. The entertainment industry is one of the lifebloods of the LA area and many are looking to get production back up and running sooner rather than later. With that in mind, Governor Gavin Newsom released the state’s guidelines for resuming production in the state.
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The guidelines from the state’s Department of Public Health are as follows:
“Music, TV and film production may resume in California, recommended no sooner than June 12, 2020 and subject to approval by county public health officers within the jurisdictions of operations following their review of local epidemiological data including cases per 100,000 population, rate of test positivity, and local preparedness to support a health care surge, vulnerable populations, contact tracing and testing. To reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, productions, cast, crew and other industry workers should abide by safety protocols agreed by labor and management, which may be further enhanced by county public health officers. Back office staff and management should adhere to Office Workspace guidelines published by the California Department of Public Health and the California Department of Industrial Relations, to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission.”
If you think that sounds vague and leaves a lot of power in the hands of the industries themselves you’re not alone. On Monday, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ Industry-Wide Labor-Management Committee Task Force delivered a set of health and safety guidelines to both Newsom and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. You can read the entire document here.
Some key aspects of the industry’s proposed guidelines – which neither the NY or CA health departments have commented publicly on – that might raise eyebrows include the fact that there is only “regular” testing (not daily as the NBA will do with their re-start of their season), the recommendation of not Iwearing gloves because it may create “a false sense of security” and the fact there was just one credited medical consultant for the entire task force. The bigger concern, however, is LA county itself.
LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer reported today that while the percentage of hospitalized LA area cases is down slightly (11%) there is concern that 1,488 COVID patients are still hospitalized.
She noted, “This has been a slight increase over the last three days in the number of people hospitalized. And we’ll need to make sure that we’re not starting to see a significant increase in the number of people requiring hospitalizations.”
The county’s effective transmission rate is also rising. After stay at home orders were put into effect, the county’s rate dropped from 3-3.5 to around 1. At a rate of 1, the overall number of infected cases begins to drop in a given population. The latest data shows that the rate is currently higher than 1 and rising. With thousands of protestors taking to the streets over the past week, health officials are aware there could be a marked increase in COVID cases in the LA area and other parts of the state in the next 2-4 weeks. Newsom and the state have been opening different counties based on their infection levels and a few counties have actually had to restore restrictions due to an increase in outbreaks.
The silver lining for Hollywood is that if other parts of the state continue to see their cases drop, production could resume in proximity to Los Angeles. For television, commercial, music video and some film projects that will mean a green-light.
It’s unclear when filming will resume in New York.