The State announced Tuesday that Kern County has moved from the Purple Tier (Tier 1) to the less restrictive Red Tier (Tier 2) of the State’s COVID-19 blueprint, effective Wednesday.

The State’s blueprint allows counties moving from the Purple to Red Tier to reopen indoor operations at additional businesses and allows certain activities to resume with modifications.

“If our metrics continue to improve, Kern County could move to the orange tier as early as April 7,” Kern Public Health said in a news release.

Every county is assigned to one of four tiers based on the adjusted case rate, testing positivity rate, and health equity metric. Kern’s adjusted case rate is 5.5 per 100,000 residents, which is a two point decrease from one week ago. Kern’s testing positive rate is at 2.8 percent, and Kern’s equity quartile testing positivity rate is at 3.9 percent.

The State’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy requires a County to remain in a tier for at least three weeks and meet the metrics of the less restrictive tier for at least two weeks before moving down a tier.   

Some highlights of expanded operations and activities in the Red Tier include: Restaurants can open indoors at 25 percent capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer; Gyms can open indoors at 10 percent capacity; Movie theaters can open indoors at 25 percent capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer; Museums, zoos and aquariums can open indoors; Hotels and lodging can open fitness centers at 10 percent capacity.

The Kern County Public Health Department announced 83 new cases of COVID-19 in Kern and six new COVID-19-related deaths, bringing the total number of cases to 105,625 and 1,100 deaths.