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Auburn Mayor Asks State To Allow City's Businesses To Resume Indoor Operations

ROSEVILLE (CBS13) — Placer County is no longer on the state's coronavirus watch list, and now, because of the unhealthy air, Auburn is asking for permission to allow businesses to resume indoor operations.

On Wednesday, Auburn Mayor Daniel Berlant sent a letter tot he State Health Officer Eria Pan, asking for indoor operations to resume immediately.

Along with being off the state's monitoring list, Berland says bad air quality from the wildfires has made it very unhealthy for businesses to operate outdoors.

Berlant wrote, in part:

"Our Placer County Health Officer, Dr. Aimee Sisson, issued recommendations that persons not remain outdoors for an extended period of time when the Air Quality (AQI) is above 150. In recent days, the AQI level in the Auburn area has been 175 and higher, and the nearby fires causing impacts to air quality are only increasing in size. As you can imagine, the poor air quality has resulted in additional impacts to our already struggling business community."

In addition to the businesses closed when the county was added to the state's monitoring list, Berlant asks indoor dining, gyms, hairstylists, and nail salons would also be reopened for indoor operations.

Placer's numbers of elevated disease transmission, hospitalizations and ICU capacity – all the factors the state looks at when adding counties to the watch list – have steadily improved, causing Gov. Newsom to remove the county from its watch list last Wednesday.

El Dorado, Nevada and Placer counties are now the only areas in the greater Sacramento region not on the watch list. Most California counties, representing the vast majority of the state's population, remain on the list

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