SANTA CRUZ — Shelter-in-place restrictions may be eased in Santa Cruz County on May 4 as efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 show signs of success.

“We’ll see how the next two weeks go, but we’re looking at lifting some of the restrictions,” Santa Cruz County Health Officer Dr. Gail Newel said Tuesday, providing an update to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.

Local parks and beaches — which Newel ordered closed last week, partially in anticipation of Easter weekend crowds — are on track to reopen Thursday.

“I anticipate allowing this order to lapse and resuming use of parks and beaches by our community beginning on Thursday,” Newel said. “And I want to thank the community in advance for their cooperation so that they continue to have this privilege of using our beautiful community parks and beaches.”

Addressing reporters later Tuesday, Newel clarified that she is working on a new, less restrictive shelter-in-place order for May 4 in coordination with 13 counterparts in the wider Bay Area and the city of Berkeley.

“We’re looking at lifting restrictions on some low-risk, mostly outdoor activities,” she said. “I feel comfortable saying that the things we’re considering now is lifting restrictions on outdoor construction, landscaping and gardening and maybe golf as well.”

In terms of social activity, Newel said regional health officials are first looking into reducing limits on gatherings to groups of up to 10 people. “After May 4, we may start with gatherings of under 10 people and see how that goes,” she said. Gatherings of up to 50 people could be permitted two months later.

“This would be over time that we would try various measures, and then perhaps also need to retract them as well,” Newel said. “We’re hoping that the public can get used to the idea of pivoting and needing to change direction at times to control the virus.”

Discussions are also underway to allow for summer day camps for school-age children, according to Newel. Local schools, however, are still expected to remain closed for the rest of the school year.

Health Services Agency Director Mimi Hall underscored the warning that plans to ease restrictions in early May remain tentative and could quickly change based on modeling, hospital capacity and the availability of testing and personal-protective equipment for health care workers.

How residents behave has an impact on modeling, Hall said, and if a “new wave” of cases starts to surge, restrictions could be put back in place even once they are lifted.

“We’ll have to be nimble, and the public is going to have to get used to this kind of a nimble back and forth of, you know, periods of orders and periods of a little bit more freedom,” Hall said.

As for beaches and parks expected to reopen Thursday, some areas may still be closed to control crowds.

“So, for example, if skate parks or dog parks or picnic areas are too crowded and continue to be a problem for law enforcement, then they will be closed,” Newel said.

The announcement of the early stages of a plan to ease local restrictions came on the same day Gov. Gavin Newsom shared details of criteria he said would have to be met to lift his statewide stay-at-home order — similar criterion to those outlined by the local officials.

Newsom said that while he planned to provide a statewide framework to gradually ease restrictions, county health officers would continue to make their own decisions based on local conditions.

“Localism is determinative,” Newsom said. “We have a state vision, but it will be realized at the local level.”

Whatever shape the local plan takes, the move toward easing restrictions comes as local health officials highlight apparent signs of success at curbing the spread of COVID-19.

Even as testing availability increases, the rate at which confirmed cases are rising appears to be slowing in Santa Cruz County — now reaching a doubling time of roughly every nine days, compared to eight days as of last week, Hall said.

The doubling rate is unofficial pending confirmation by an epidemiologist based on the most recent data, she said.

Prior to Santa Cruz County’s March 16 shelter-in-place order, local COVID-19 cases were doubling every six days, according to Hall.

By Tuesday afternoon, 91 cases of the virus were confirmed in Santa Cruz County out of more than 23,300 across California and more than 602,000 nationwide.

A UCSC shuttle driver with COVID-19 died early Tuesday, marking the county’s second death related to the virus.

Bay Area News Group contributed to this report.