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The 49ers won't be headed back to the Bay Area this season.
Though it was just supposed to be a three-week visit to State Farm Stadium, San Francisco will finish out it's regular season in Arizona after COVID-19 restrictions were extended in Santa Clara County, the team said on Friday, via ESPN's Nick Wagoner.
Santa Clara County, where the 49ers are located just south of San Francisco, implemented new coronavirus restrictions that included a ban on all contact sports in the county - which is what prompted the team, and several college programs, to leave the county. That ban was extended through at least January 8.
The 49ers hosted both the Buffalo Bills and Washington Football Team in Arizona the past two weeks, but will travel to Dallas to take on the Cowboys on Sunday. They were already scheduled to take on the Cardinals in Arizona on Dec. 26 anyways.
The only change to the schedule will be their final game of the season, as they will now host the Seattle Seahawks in Arizona instead of at Levi's Stadium.
It's unclear how San Francisco would proceed if it were to make the playoffs - though it has dropped five of its last six games, which has severely limited its chances at reaching the postseason at all.
Shanahan focused on getting families to Arizona for Christmas
One of the biggest things that 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan was worried about when the move was first announced was the holiday season. He wanted to be positive that his players and staff could see their families.
He said Friday that they organization is already working to get families down to the Phoenix area, and that they will all be tested for the coronavirus before reuniting with their loved ones.
"The day we were made to leave, we pretty much assumed that would happen," Shanahan said, via ESPN. "That's why we made the decision early. We weren't going to wait for something that we knew was inevitable, so we have been planning on getting our families down . I know not everyone can do it, but anyone who can, we're getting our families down."
COVID-19 still worse in Arizona than in Santa Clara
While the move to Arizona was due to coronavirus safety measures, the pandemic is actually still raging worse in the Phoenix area than it is in Santa Clara County.
Maricopa County, which holds the greater Phoenix area, is averaging more than 91 new cases a day per 100,000 people over the past week compared to just more than 62 in Santa Clara County, according to The New York Times.
Neither state, however, is fairing well as a whole. California and Arizona sit third and fourth, respectively, in new cases per capita as of Friday afternoon behind just Tennessee and Rhode Island.
© Provided by Yahoo! SportsThe 49ers will finish out the season in Arizona. (Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images)
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