San Francisco County officials announced Monday the city and county’s stay-at-home orders will remain in effect through the end of May amidst a still-growing number of COVID-19 cases across the Bay Area and state.

The orders were previously set to expire May 3.

In a press conference Monday, Breed explained the decision and acknowledged the extension is “for some of you the most challenging time of your lives.”

“I’ve asked you to do that through the deadline with the hopes of maybe moving it back to allowing the city to open, and today, unfortunately, we will need to extend the deadline for the stay-at-home order for the month of May,” Breed said. “I know this is again very challenging.”

“As we extend this stay-at-home order, it is going to be important for us to look for ways we can develop along with our health expert’s policies that will get us back to plans in order to open our city again,” she said. “Let me be clear: Public health is our priority. Taking the data and the information from our public health experts and using that to make determinations around what we can and can’t do is critical to making sure that we’re protected.”

Earlier Monday, San Francisco, in tandem with five other Bay Area counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo and Santa Clara — announced extensions “through May” to their respective shelter-in-place orders. The guidelines, released in a joint statement, also mention a “limited easing of specific restrictions for a small number of lower-risk activities,” but did not specify what those activities might be. A specific end date for the extended shelter-in-place order was also not given.

“This global pandemic of COVID-19 is still in its early stages,” the statement read. “The virus spreads easily, testing capacity is limited and expanding slowly, and vaccine development is just beginning. We expect to be responding to COVID-19 in our communities for a long time. As effective as our efforts have been, if we move too fast to ease restrictions, the potential of exponential spread could have grave impacts to health and wellness of our residents as well as the economy.”