SF Mayor London Breed urges residents to 'use common sense' as city enters regional stay-at-home order

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The Bay Area's dwindling ICU capacity has triggered California's stay at home order on Wednesday. This means, starting on Thursday, Dec. 17, San Francisco, along with the other surrounding counties must enforce the state's COVID-19 orders. Mayor London Breed joined ABC7 News's "Getting Answers," and shared how that impacts the city.

"We're only putting these systems in place because we're seeing a significant spike (in COVID-19 hospitalizations)," Breed said.

On Dec. 6, San Francisco voluntarily joined the stay-at-home order but made some updates that allowed for residents to interact with one other person not from their household to socially distance and hang out outdoors.

RELATED: New day, new rules: Everything to know about California's confusing new stay-at-home order

San Francisco Supervisor Matt Hanet jokingly tweeted that people were allowed to date again and said the state order was too strict.

"The original order was obviously ridiculous, unrealistic, extreme, so much so people wouldn't understand or follow it," Haney's tweeted in a thread. "The new version is still overly restrictive imo. The public health orders have to be connected to reality or they will increasingly be ignored completely."

Now that the city is under the regional stay-at-home order, much like the one issued in March, you're technically not allowed to see anyone outside your household.

MAP:Coronavirus California: Bay Area counties join stay-at-home order

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Mayor Breed said she doesn't "think it's fair to expect people who live alone to not be able to interact with some other human being."

"As someone who is single and lives alone, I am a fighter for the single people who are living in a household by themselves," Breed said. "To try and get the Public Health Department to understand that people who live alone need to be able to interact with someone, so part of what we're trying to do is flesh that out so that we can do it in a responsible way."

"We just want people to use common sense and be careful and know that this is real, and we want to try to come up with some reasonable guidelines for singles," she added.

MORE: California breaks records with more than 53,000 new COVID-19 cases, 293 deaths on Tuesday

California on Wednesday reported more than 53,000 new COVID-19 cases, a record number as the Bay Area's ICU's rate dwindled below 15%.

Solano County's health officer, Dr. Bela T. Matyas told ABC7 News, "We're going to go back to a situation very similar to what we had back in March with the original stay at home order by the governor. There were a few things that will be available now that weren't done. For example, outdoor playgrounds can operate. But essentially there are two things that the order will do. One is it'll prohibit people from interacting with members outside their household. And we will essentially say you have to stay at home unless you're doing something essential like shopping or going to work."

The stay-at-home order will be in effect for at least three weeks and Matyas explained that in order to get off the list, the hospital ICU capacity has to be above 15%.

Watch the full interview with Dr. Matyas and Mayor London Breed on "Getting Answers" here.

VIDEO: Here's how shelter in place, stay at home orders can slow spread of COVID-19

Governments around the country are looking at ways to curb the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus. One way is to institute a shelter-in-place-order. But what does that mean and how does it work? We broke it down for you.

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