On the first indication that California will adopt President Joe Biden’s call for everyone to be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine by May 1, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Friday that the state is moving to get rid of restrictions which residents can be vaccinated.
“We anticipate within five and a half weeks (being) where we will be able to eliminate all layers, so to speak, and make vaccines available to everyone across the spectrum,” said Newsom during a stop in San Francisco. “The offer will increase exponentially, so in a few weeks, these issues will be resolved in a substantive way.”
A spokesman for the state’s public health department told the Bay Area News Group that the state would likely release more details next week. The move would follow several other states and launch open vaccine eligibility for more than 32 million Californians – including more than 5 million in the five counties bay area – but in turn would put more pressure on a delivery system plagued by delays, shortage of supplies and bureaucracy disputes.
The aggressive push to increase vaccines comes at a time when the number of new coronavirus cases in California has dropped dramatically in recent weeks to levels not seen in almost a year.
The average new seven-day cases is about 2,830, less than since the Golden State’s first significant peak in early June and well below the end of December, when the average skyrocketed to the north of 45,000. Across the United States, states have published equally optimistic data.
The drop in the case rate has caused counties across California to start allowing more stores and businesses to reopen, and vaccinated people are starting to feel more comfortable getting together and leaving their homes.
In Alameda County, the seven-day average case rate dropped to the 1980s, reaching a level not seen since October and, before that, June. In Contra Costa County, cases followed a similar pattern, with the average dropping to the 1990s. With the exception of a peak in June, the San Francisco County rate – in the 1920s – is lower than ever. The San Mateo County tax rate has reached 30 years. In the municipality of Santa Clara, the average is around 120, slightly above what was in the autumn.
But some places, including California, have seen a plateau in case rates. Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project on Thursday noted that Michigan saw a reversal of previous declines, with cases and hospitalizations now increasing. Hospitalizations increased 45% compared to February, contradicting the previous optimism that, even if the case count increased, the launch of the vaccine could help keep patients out of the hospital. Injections are effective in preventing death and hospitalization, but, as in California, most people in Michigan have not yet been vaccinated.
“I think what Michigan tells us is that we are not out of danger,” said UCSF epidemiologist George Rutherford. “We have these variants in circulation, we have behavioral changes, certain parts of the country are less immunized than others, and it is a configuration for these things to happen.”
The Great Lakes State, according to the screening project, also has the second most confirmed case in the USA of variant B.1.1.7, or United Kingdom, of the original virus. The variant spreads more easily and research suggests that it may be more deadly, which may be contributing to the alarming jump in cases and hospitalizations. The variant, along with several others, is increasingly a concern in California as well. Recently, a new case of a South African variant that may be more resistant to some vaccines has emerged in Santa Clara County. It is not the first case in the area, but it is doubly worrying because it is believed to be the first case here of community transmission, not travel.
“We don’t know which path this Michigan outbreak will take, but it could be a thermometer for what happens when new variants of concern find populations with less access to the vaccine,” noted the screening project. on twitter.
The urgency is clear, but the vaccine’s launch in California has been slow. A California Department of Public Health spokesman said the state expects to receive about 1.8 million doses of the vaccine each week for the next few weeks – in line with previous assignments, although the number of people eligible to be vaccinated has increased by at least 4 million Monday to include people with certain disabilities and health conditions. Santa Clara County canceled thousands of vaccine appointments this week, citing a shortage of supplies. Other providers, including Sutter and Kaiser, have also canceled appointments in recent months.
Even with tight vaccine supplies, the Biden government said that by early May, states should allow everyone aged 16 and over to register for a vaccine appointment. Officials say they expect supply to increase significantly in April, and the Biden government said on Friday that it hopes to have enough vaccine for each adult by the end of May.
But a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examining the performance of states in bringing vaccines to communities most affected by the deadly virus points to California as the fifth worst state. The data on which the report was based predates the state’s decision to reserve 40% of its vaccine for high-risk communities – a plan that generated resistance from Bay Area leaders because it targeted mainly the Central Valley and Southern California communities. .
The report, Newsom said, “highlighted why we did it.”
Writer Harriet Rowan contributed to the report.