The Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted today to direct the County Executive Office to coordinate with other Southern California counties to present a unified request to the governor to revise or drop the color-coded coronavirus tier system.
The vote comes after Riverside County was demoted to the most-restrictive purple tier after briefly being in the red tier, which allowed for limited indoor capacity for restaurants, movie theaters, gyms and places of worship.
The proposal, approved unanimously, was led by Supervisor Karen Spiegel, who said that Riverside County residents have suffered “devastating impacts” from the public health lockdowns.
The vote directs the Executive Office to engage officials in Imperial, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego, Orange, and Ventura counties in forming a partnership to address the tier system.
Coronavirus is now the third-leading cause of death for Riverside County residents, according to Director of Public Health Kim Saruwatari.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there have been 66,732 infections and 1,295 deaths attributed to the virus in Riverside County since the documentation period began in early March.
