Shelter in place orders: Residents of six Bay Area counties ordered to stay home

Six San Francisco Bay Area counties are issuing orders Monday afternoon, encouraging residents to stay home, officials said. Six San Francisco Bay Area counties are issuing orders Monday afternoon, encouraging residents to stay home, officials said. Photo: Getty / Katrin Sauerwein / EyeEm Photo: Getty / Katrin Sauerwein / EyeEm Image 1 of / 48 Caption Close Shelter in place orders: Residents of six Bay Area counties ordered to stay home 1 / 48 Back to Gallery

Six San Francisco Bay Area counties issued shelter-in-place orders Monday afternoon, ordering residents to stay home, officials said. The new declarations issued by Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, along with the city of Berkeley, affect nearly 7 million people.

Starting at midnight on Monday evening, residents of these counties are being ordered stay home for the next three weeks, except for essential needs such as getting food, picking up medicine, seeing a doctor, caring for a family member or friend, or for work reasons.

“Over the weekend, six counties conferred and agreed this step is needed immediately,” Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco County’s health officer, said at a press conference in S.F. (Get all the details on the shelter-in-place order in San Francisco specifically right here.)

“Temporarily changing our routine is absolutely necessary to slow the spread of this pandemic,” Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County's public health officer, said at a press conference in the county. “The Health Officers from the largest jurisdictions in the San Francisco Bay Area are united and we are taking this step together to offer the best protection to our respective communities.”

ALSO: San Francisco ordered to shelter in place due to coronavirus

In all counties, essential government services will continue to operate including transit, police and fire departments, and healthcare services. Grocery stores, pharmacies, banks and gas stations will remain.

Restaurants will only offer take-out and delivery only. Non-essential businesses — such as bars and gyms — will close.

The orders are expected to be in effect through April 7.

“It's the new normal temporarily to protect public health,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said at a news conference. “These measures will be disruptive to day to day life, but there is no need to panic."

Contra Costa County's call center is taking questions about the new shelter-in-place order at (844) 729-8410.

NEWS: Bay Area jurisdictions order residents to stay home; health officers within 6 Bay Area counties — including @SMCHealth Officer Dr. Scott Morrow — take unified step to slow the spread of #COVID19 & preserve critical health care capacity across region: https://t.co/TOcJCAfI7p — County of San Mateo (@sanmateoco) March 16, 2020

This is a developing story.

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Amy Graff is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.