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When officials designed the four-tier, yellow-to-purple system that California now uses to decide whether people can dine indoors, go to the movies, or get together with friends last summer, they didn’t. green level included – recognition that a return to normalcy after the pandemic was far away. Now Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is preparing to add one.
“The likelihood of hitting that green level is probably sooner than some of us thought when we looked at summer and fall,” California health secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Thursday.
State officials are using a complicated formula, including the spread of the virus, to determine what activities are restricted in each county.
But a green designation does not mean “go” for all things. Ghaly said such a label would always mean wearing masks and staying physically away. He declined in an interview to offer more details on the restrictions that would be maintained or to provide a threshold for vaccinations the state hopes to meet to allow such a green light.
Earlier Thursday, the state’s public health director Dr Tomas Aragón predicted that California could achieve herd immunity when around 75% of the population has been vaccinated, although that could change with the mutation. virus.
The fact that officials are optimistic enough to publicly discuss a green standard puts California in a drastically different place than it was a few weeks ago during the state’s worst push. Today, rates of cases, hospitalizations and deaths are dropping and vaccinations are on the rise.
On Thursday, Ghaly and other officials, including Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, the surgeon general, publicly received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at sites in Los Angeles and Oakland to promote its safety and effectiveness. The J&J one-short vaccine recently received federal government approval for emergency use.
California’s supply of the single-shot vaccine is limited at this time, but officials are eager to build confidence in it, especially in black and Latin American communities. The state recently said counties can open faster once people in vulnerable neighborhoods are vaccinated.
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Moderna and Pfizer vaccines both require two injections, while J&J requires only one dose. Although public health officials say it offers strong immunity, some people hesitated, fearing it might not be as protective as others.
“The thing that came to my mind when this vaccine came into my arm was hugging my mom again. And I think that’s something too many Californians have been deprived of since starting. this pandemic, ”said Burke Harris, who is black.
Cornelia Stevens was one of several dozen residents lined up at the Los Angeles site. As a member of the California National Guard, she received an email Wednesday night informing her that her military branch was eligible for the vaccine.
“I was waiting my turn. I didn’t think my time would come so soon, ”said Stevens, 50.
Under the new reopening plan, counties can more easily move from the most restrictive purple level to the lower red level when 2 million doses of vaccine have reached residents of California’s most disadvantaged zip codes. Once 4 million doses are administered in these areas, it will be easier to switch to orange.
When officials established the system in August, Newsom said it was too early to consider a green level that would signal “getting back to the way things were”. The Democratic governor said Wednesday officials have been working on a green level for months “in anticipation of that bright light at the end of this tunnel.”
Nearly half of the state’s 58 counties have left the tightest restrictions, and large counties like Los Angeles and Orange are expected to do so soon, allowing limited indoor dining and the reopening of theaters and gyms. LA County, the state’s most populous with 10 million people, said it plans to qualify for the red level between Monday and Wednesday of next week.
Also on Thursday, the state announced new rules for bars and brasseries, which have been largely closed if they don’t serve food. Starting Saturday, breweries and distilleries that do not serve food can open outdoors in the purple and red bleachers. State guidelines say that guests of both, as well as wineries, must have reservations and limit their stay to 90 minutes and that service must end at 8 p.m. Bars that do not serve food do not cannot open before the orange level.
The state has reason to be cautiously optimistic, said Dr Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, director of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California at San Francisco. But she fears that the state’s plan to speed up the reopening is “too aggressive”.
It is estimated that 4.4 million people with certain medical conditions or significant and high-risk disabilities will be eligible for the vaccine on Monday. They will not be required to provide documents, but will be asked to sign a self-attestation that they meet the criteria, the state’s public health department said Thursday.
People who work or reside in assembly places, such as detention centers, prisons and homeless shelters, will also be newly eligible, as will public transport workers and airline airport workers. commercials, the state also announced.
This additional eligibility could create bottlenecks if supply remains limited, Bibbins-Domingo said. At the same time, California must focus on vaccinating inner city areas to reduce the likelihood of future outbreaks, she said.
“I’m afraid the real look ahead and hard to go to the open with a little easier to reach thresholds, frankly, isn’t playing out quite the way we all would like,” she said.
Copyright © 2021 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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