Dr. Ferrer on July 4th: Only celebrate with people in your household

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Since L.A. County beaches will be closed for the July 4th holiday, and there won't be firework shows, block parties or indoor restaurant dining. L.A. County Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer says please don't think backyard barbecues with friends and family are the solution.

"The safest thing to do is going to to be to celebrate this holiday like you've celebrated many other holidays over the past few months, with just people who live with you in your household," said Ferrer.

Ferrer applauded Gov. Gavin Newsom's order to halt inside dining at restaurants because the data shows there's a higher risk of spread indoors than outdoors. Restaurants are still allowed to offer outside dining and takeout.

"Over 1/3 of the restaurants we visited this past weekend were not in compliance. Their employees were not appropriately protected. More of the sites, the distancing measurements were not in effect," said Ferrer.

This as L.A. County saw its fourth straight day of over 2,000 reported in a single day, with 2,002 bringing the total number of those testing positive in the county to 105,507. The county saw 35 additional deaths bringing the total number of deaths 3,404. Ferrer said the spike in cases is happening for a variety of reasons, not just because of the protests or businesses reopening, but it all happening at once didn't help. In our ABC7 interview, Ferrer said the fact that neighboring counties like Ventura and Orange were moving ahead of L.A. County in their reopening also didn't encourage compliance.

"It felt OK to have a reopening when we were very clear about what everyone needed to do to create spaces that were as safe as possible," Ferrer said. "We needed to give more time for businesses to actually do that reset."

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