Drive-through parties, car parades nixed in Santa Clara

May 7, 2020 1:23 PM PT

Santa Clara County residents who thought they could shift their in-person celebrations to the car had a rude awakening this week when officials explicitly prohibited any vehicle gatherings. That includes the likes of car parades, caravans and drive-through graduations.

County health officials extended the area’s shelter-in-place orders through May 31 alongside a handful of other Bay Area communities. Though some restrictions have been lifted on businesses, officials added explicit prohibitions and clarifications around activities that have previously taken place as the coronavirus has pushed people indoors.

Officials addressed the new rules in a Frequently Asked Questions page on the county’s website.

1/13

Nurse anesthetist Nilu Patel quietly stands with fellow nurses at UC Irvine Medical Center for a candlelight vigil at their shift change to describe conditions and the need for more N95 respirators and protective gear required to safely treat coronavirus patients. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

2/13

Registered nurses at UC Irvine Medical Center pose for campy selfies following a candlelight vigil at their shift change. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

3/13

Nurse Maria Louviaux quietly stands with fellow nurses at UC Irvine Medical Center for an hourlong candlelight vigil to highlight conditions and the need for more N95 respirators and protective gear required to safely treat coronavirus patients. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

4/13

Registered nurse Patty Pinedo takes the temperature of resident Sally Kimani as she enters a West L.A. hotel that has been turned into housing for the homeless during the coronavirus pandemic. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

5/13

A nurse gets help putting on her personal protective equipment before heading into a negative pressure room to administer care for a COVID-19 patient at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center in Chula Vista, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

6/13

Orange County Fire Authority firefighters and other first responders from Laguna Beach, Santa Ana and Irvine thank healthcare workers for their efforts to combat COVID-19 at Mission Hospital (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

7/13

Red Cross nurse Edith Fernandez, right, tends to blood donor, Cheri Adams as USC Athletics and the Red Cross host a blood drive to help maintain a stable blood supply during the coronavirus pandemic at USC’s Galen Center. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

8/13

Marsha Santini, a nurse at UCLA Medical Center, and fellow nurses and supporters gather to protest the lack of personal protective equipment. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

9/13

Nurse practitioner Christine Alberto puts on protective gear before she and other health professionals prepare to go outside of the COVID Cabana, the name for the COVID-19 testing tent, to test a patient while they sit in their car parked next to the tent at Scripps Clinic Torrey Pines in San Diego. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

10/13

Medical personnel from St. Jude Medical Center stand clustered on the sidewalk as Fullerton and Brea Firefighters, EMS and Police join together in a show of support for healthcare workers outside of the St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

11/13

Healthcare workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic at Glendale Adventist Hospital in Glendale gather outside the facility for a tribute to their work by Glendale police and fire personnel. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

12/13

UC Irvine Medical Center health care workers bang on the windows in a return of gratitude as they watch about 25 Orange County first responders vehicles participate in a drive-by parade of gratitude as they battle COVID-19 at the hospital. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

13/13

Jennifer Adams, a registered nurse, joins fellow healthcare workers outside UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center to call for further action from the federal government’s in reaction to the Covid 19 outbreak. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“The order prohibits all public and private gatherings with people who do not live in the same household or living unit, except for the limited purposes allowed in the order. Parades, ceremonies, and similar gatherings with people outside your household are not allowed, even if everyone stays in their cars,” the page reads.

The county previously told residents not to visit friends or family members outside their households.

The county also addressed rules about the wearing of masks, which are required at businesses. Though the use of face coverings is encouraged elsewhere in public, they are not mandatory, officials stated.

Ahead of Mother’s Day, officials also noted that flowers may be purchased from essential retail businesses like grocery stores or from farmers markets, nurseries and online stores, but flower shops will remain closed.

Santa Clara County was an early hotbed of coronavirus cases and remains one of the counties with the highest infection rates in the state. Nearly 2,300 people in the county have been infected with the virus and 126 have died, including five reported Tuesday.

As nearby Northern California communities have eased restrictions, and some businesses have gone so far as to defy Gov. Gavin Newsom’s closure orders, the counties of Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara, as well as the city of Berkeley, extended their stay-at-home orders and cautioned against moving too quickly to reverse course.

“You can still see that it’s still gone up pretty significantly in recent times,” Dr. Jeffrey Smith told the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors earlier this week. “There’s a lot of talk in California about relaxing shelter-in-place [orders]. I just want to point out that we’re still, in California, going up dramatically. So there’s no clinical evidence that shelter-in-place [orders] should be relaxed at this point.”

Though Newsom has given the green light for counties to start lifting restrictions on certain businesses, he and other public health officials continue to warn of the dangers of reopening too much of the state too quickly.

“We have to maintain the core construct of our stay-at-home orders,” Newsom said this week.