Most of California’s 40 million residents will be able to enjoy limited indoor activities, such as dining indoors or watching a movie at the cinema midweek, such as coronavirus case rates remain low, state officials said on Friday.
Officials said 13 counties, including Los Angeles, would be able to open restaurants, gyms and museums with limited capacity on Sunday, the result of the state reaching an equity metric of 2 million designed to provide more vaccines in low-income communities. Another 13 counties are due to reopen on Wednesday with a different metric.
Also next week, the state expands eligibility for the still-scarce vaccine.
Which counties can reopen on Sunday and why?
Governor Gavin Newsom announced last week that he would reserve 40% of the vaccine for residents of some 400 CEPs that the state considers most vulnerable based on metrics such as family income, access to health care and levels of education.
The goal is to link reopening standards to ensure that people most affected by the pandemic are protected from the virus, he said. When the state reaches 2 million doses administered in these CEPs, which it did on Friday, the limit for leaving the more restrictive layer in a color-coded four-layer system that the state adopted in August decreases.
Previously, counties could move from the purple layer to the lower red layer based on metrics that include the number of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people per day over a period of several weeks. The threshold for entering the red level now goes from 7 cases per 100,000 residents to 10 cases.
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Counties eligible to reopen in 48 hours – Sunday – include Contra Costa and Sonoma in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. San Bernardino and Orange said they would do so on Sunday, although LA county officials said they would wait until Monday.
What about the other counties?
San Diego, Sacramento, Riverside and Ventura are among the 13 additional counties that are due to reopen on Wednesday through the normal transfer process that takes place every Tuesday.
San Joaquin and Santa Barbara are in this category. The hard-hit counties of Kern and Fresno in the central valley remain in the most restrictive layer.
Who becomes eligible for the vaccine on Monday?
The state is opening vaccines to about 4.4 million people aged 16 to 64 with disabilities and certain health conditions, including severe obesity, type 2 diabetes, stage four or higher chronic kidney disease and Down’s syndrome.
California guidelines do not require medical documentation; instead, people will have to certify that they are eligible. This reduces access barriers, but it also opens up a loophole for certain line jumpers.
San Francisco is going a step further than the state, expanding the permitted categories and adding people who are deaf, HIV positive or have behavioral health deficiencies, including serious mental health problems or substance use, to be vaccinated.
Dr. Paul Simon, director of science for LA County, said people will be asked to sign a certificate if they are unable to provide documentation. “We certainly hope that people will not try to take advantage of the situation and be honest,” said Simon.
The state is also expanding eligibility for transit workers and residents and workers in shelters for homeless people, prisons and detention centers. They team up with teachers, food and agriculture workers, health workers and the elderly aged 65 and over to be eligible for the vaccine.
What is the state of California’s new vaccine system?
In late January, Newsom announced that insurance company Blue Shield would establish and administer a new vaccine tracking and distribution system. The state’s 58 counties and three cities with public health departments would be required to use the state’s My Turn system to make appointments.
Blue Shield is expected to take control by March 31. But Santa Clara County has refused to sign a contract with the insurance company, saying it can better vaccinate its residents with an appointment system superior to the state system.
Blue Shield CEO Paul Markovich said on Friday that more than half of local health jurisdictions have switched to My Turn or will soon change, he said.
My Turn is great for scheduling appointments at mass vaccination sites, but it’s not so good at creating vacancies for vulnerable populations at smaller clinics, said Joe Prado, manager of the Fresno County community health division. He hopes the state’s online portal will improve.
“We are going to live with these two systems a little more,” he said.