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California has reached its original goal of administering more COVID-19 vaccines to the worst affected and most disadvantaged areas. This milestone marks the State’s effort to distribute doses more equitably and also paves the way for major economic reopening.
With 2 million doses now passed through the arms of residents living in targeted communities statewide, officials are poised to relax the criteria needed for counties to exit the more stringent category of the four-party reopening plan. California levels.
The change allows some large urban counties, such as Orange, to leave the proscriptive purple level for the first time in months and others, including Los Angeles and San Bernardino, to do so for the first time since the color coding system was unveiled in late August.
Going to the less stringent red level means those three counties – along with nine others, according to an analysis of Times data – will be allowed to resume indoor dining at restaurants and movie theater screenings at 25 percent capacity. , welcoming students from grades 7 to 12. back for in-person classes, reopen indoor gyms and dance and yoga studios to 10% capacity, and increase the maximum capacity allowed in non-essential stores and libraries over the next few days.
Museums, zoos and aquariums can also reopen indoor operations in the red level, at 25% capacity.
Amusement parks can also reopen at 15% of their capacity with further changes in red level counties starting April 1. Long-closed attractions such as Disneyland, Universal Studios, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Six Flags Magic Mountain are weeks away from welcoming visitors – who must be California residents – again after being closed for nearly a year .
However, the extent of the reopening is up to local health officials, as they can adopt stricter rules than state ones.
While some countries throughout the pandemic have called for greater latitude to reopen their economies more widely, others have taken a slower approach.
Officials in LA County, the most populous in the country, have confirmed they will largely align with the state’s red level rules once the region officially progresses. Wider reopenings will be possible from Monday, they said.
“This milestone is the result of collaboration between businesses and individuals and doing their part to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement. “It will be up to everyone – businesses and residents – to continue to reduce transmission and closely follow safety guidelines to keep everyone safe by preventing an increase in cases. When even a relatively small number of businesses and individuals fail to comply with security measures, many more suffer tragic consequences. “
County Supervisor Hilda Solis called the move “good news, especially since many of our small businesses have suffered the brunt of the financial fallout from this pandemic and our students are struggling to keep pace. distance education. “
“We took that step and went to the red level because as a county we worked hard, we looked after each other and we came together to beat the dark wave of winter,” said she said in a press release. “While we are taking steps to reopen some of the hardest hit sectors of our economy, that does not mean we can let our guard down now. We owe it to our neighbors, local businesses and our children to remain vigilant to ensure that reopening is safe and sustainable. Wearing masks and physical distance remain essential. “
The accelerated advancement in Los Angeles and elsewhere is made possible by a review of California’s reopening roadmap that was unveiled last week.
In an effort to address inequities in the deployment of its vaccines, the state is now allocating 40% of available supplies to residents of areas most in need, as revealed by a socio-economic measurement tool called the California Healthy Places Index.
Specifically, these doses would go to communities in the lowest quartile of the index – which includes about 400 statewide zip codes in places such as South Los Angeles, the Eastside, Koreatown, Chinatown, Compton, southeastern LA County, eastern San Fernando. Valley, Santa Ana and a number of strongly Latin American communities along the corridor of Highway 10 between Pomona and San Bernardino.
As part of the new targeted strategy, the State has set itself the objective of first administering 2 million doses in these areas, then 4 million. After hitting each mark, California aims to revamp its reopening roadmap to allow counties to resume their economic operations more broadly.
The state system ranks counties in one of four color-coded levels based on a few factors: testing positivity rates, a measure of health equity meant to ensure that the positivity rate in the poorest communities does not. It’s not significantly worse than the county’s overall figure, and, crucially, in terms of wider reopenings, case rate.
Originally, counties were required to record a rate – adjusted for the number of tests performed – equal to or less than 7.0 new coronavirus cases per day per 100,000 population to go from the purple level to the red level.
With the state having met its 2 million dose target, counties with a case rate of up to 10 new cases per day per 100,000 population are now eligible to move forward. Counties are yet to record two straight weeks of case rates low enough to move forward.
A dozen counties met these criteria: Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Contra Costa, Sonoma, Placer, Mendocino, San Benito, Tuolumne, Siskiyou, Colusa and Mono.
Eleven others – San Diego, Riverside, Sacramento, Ventura, Tulare, Santa Barbara, Monterey, Sutter, Yuba, Lake and Tehama – have recorded a week of red-level data and are expected to hit the target again next week to progress.
If they did, it would boost the number of non-purple counties to 47, home to a total of 90% of the state’s population.
When the state hits its target of delivering 4 million doses to the hardest-hit areas, the threshold for moving to even milder amber would be relaxed from a requirement of less than 4 new cases per day per 100,000. residents under 6. Entering the least restrictive yellow level would require an adjusted case rate of below 2 new cases per day per 100,000 population, compared to the current requirement of less than 1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said this week that the state is also working on a new green level “in anticipation of this bright light now at the end of this tunnel,” although he did not specify what that would look like.
“As we start to reopen, as we get to 10, 15, 20 million vaccinations, get closer and closer [to] collective immunity, then we’ll start to make it clear that those levels were temporary, ”he said. “They are not permanent, and there is something beyond orange and yellow.”
Over the past week, providers across California have administered an average of nearly 188,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine per day, bringing the cumulative total to just under 11 million shots, according to data compiled by the Times.
Currently, Californians aged 65 and over, or working in the specific areas of food and agriculture, education and child care, and health and emergency services, can be vaccinated.
As of Monday, around 4.4 million residents with certain disabilities or underlying health conditions will also be able to join the line.
Officials say they expect the supply of available doses to remain tight over the next few weeks, although they hope supplies will be more robust in the spring.
Amid optimism over the vaccine rollout, health officials continue to urge caution, saying California cannot afford to let its guard down and risk another resurgence of a disease that has already killed more than 55,000 people statewide.
Taking measures to prevent transmission of the virus – including wearing masks in public, washing your hands regularly and avoiding crowds, especially indoors – remains vital, officials and experts say.
The parameters of the state, however, are heading in a promising direction. Over the past week, California reported an average of 3,881 new coronavirus cases per day, a decrease of about 33% from two weeks ago, according to data from The Times.
Hospitalizations have also dropped dramatically from the peak of the fall and winter outbreak. As of Wednesday, 3,477 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized statewide, including 961 in intensive care. These two figures are the lowest since mid-November.
“This disease continues to be fatal. This disease continues to be pervasive, ”Newsom said. “It’s not a spring break. This disease is not going to take off in the summer. It will only be turned off by each of us doing what we must to mitigate the spread. That’s why it’s so important not to run the 90-yard dash.
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