San Francisco lifts quarantine order for travel outside of the Bay Area

San Francisco has just lifted the 10-day quarantine for residents who travel outside of the Bay Area. As per the order issued on Tuesday, Feb 23, the health order requiring those who engage in non-essential travel to quarantine after arriving home is no longer in effect. However, the officials still advise the people against non-essential travel.

The previous compulsory quarantine order was issued in mid-December after seeing a spike in cases following the Thanksgiving holiday.City officials say San Francisco is showing progress in containing COVID-19 with a 7-day average of 89 cases a day. This is down 76% from the most recent surge.

Residents are still encouraged to follow the state travel advisory, which recommends against traveling out of the state or 120-miles away from home. The advisory also includes people arriving or returning to California to self-quarantine for 10-days. The officials are cautious of coronavirus variants from the UK and South Africa, which are considered deadlier and can't be contained from the current vaccines.

"Lifting this order does not mean that it's now safe to just hop on a plane or go on a road trip. This is not a travel free-for-all. We've made tremendous progress and brought our case numbers down, but we need to keep our guards up. The growing prevalence of variants, some of which were brought from abroad, is further proof that we must be extra cautious. Let's go forward, not backward," said San Francisco's Acting Health Officer, Dr. Susan Philip.