The morning after the non-stellar state of the state speech, Governor Gavin Newsom gave good news to some 15 million Californians. Newsom said the state will on Friday reach the 2 million dose limit for the Covid-19 vaccine in low-income and hard-hit communities, triggering a change in the state plan for a safer economy that will promote Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties in the “red” layer of this matrix and pave the way for more companies to reopen. As long as local health officials agree, companies in those counties will be able to open under the less restrictive limits of the red level on Saturday. LA has been at the most restrictive level of the governor’s plan since August.
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Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said earlier this week that it will take 48 hours after the state announces that the vaccination threshold has been reached for the county to officially go to the red level. If the goal is met by Friday, as Newsom announced, the county will move forward on Sunday.
On Tuesday, however, two members of the LA County Board of Supervisors said they support full alignment with state guidelines as soon as possible. More on that below.
Moving from the “purple” restrictive layer to the red layer will authorize the county to increase capacity limits at retail establishments and reopen theme parks, indoor restaurants, fitness centers and cinemas.
State officials recently announced that the theme parks would be allowed to reopen on April 1 with 15% of their capacity, with visitors only in the state. This schedule was brought forward by about two weeks. Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced on Tuesday that Disneyland would reopen in “late April”.
Theaters may reopen with 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is less.
Live outdoor events, such as sports and concerts, can reopen at 20% capacity. This includes suites with 25% occupancy per suite and no more than three families gathered in each suite.
“Southern California, you will be a beneficiary of this,” said Newsom during a visit to a mobile vaccination clinic in South Gate.
“Specifically, LA will be a big beneficiary of this new metric that is likely to be achieved on Friday. And moving forward over the weekend and next week, you will see more activity, more loosening of the layers ”, predicted the governor. This is encouraging and I hope people will be excited about what it means in the future, because we have a number of other limits and other goals that will allow us to move forward with more clarity, more conviction and more confidence as we move forward over the next few weeks. and
In the next months. “
Under the tier system that will soon become out of date, LA qualified this week for the first of the two consecutive weeks required to move to the red level. But the California Department of Public Health recently revealed that once the state has administered 2 million doses of vaccine in underprivileged neighborhoods, it will make it much easier to move from purple to red. Instead of less than seven daily cases per 100,000 residents, counties only need to change to less than 10 cases per 100,000.
LA has served 10 cases per 100,000 metric for weeks and will therefore be able to reopen immediately as soon as the vaccination limit is reached. (The change in requirements is retroactive, meaning that counties receive credit if they recently had a case rate between seven and 10 per 100,000 residents.)
It appears that, according to the adjusted case rates of the past two weeks, six other northern counties will join the three in Southern California in the red layer this weekend. They are: Colusa, Contra Costa, Mendocino, Mono, Placer, Tuolumne.
On Tuesday, the state registered more than 1.92 million vaccinations for members of underserved communities – interestingly, this is almost the number of signatures in the petition to revoke Newsom. Some thought that Newsom could actually make the announcement during his State of the State address, but he did not.
The state’s Covid-19 tracker on Wednesday noted that some numbers were out of date due to latency issues, but on Monday and Tuesday it is estimated that California delivered 20,000 and 30,000 shots to the arms. Given these daily rates, it is easy to see how the state can reach 2 million by Friday.
On Tuesday, two members of the powerful LA County Board of Supervisors said they support full alignment with state guidelines.
“I strongly believe that we must align ourselves with the guidelines for reopening the state’s red layer,” said supervisor Janice Hahn. “I think being different from that now would cause confusion and probably a lot of anger, because there are so many places out there, entities, that have really suffered and are waiting for some more of these restrictions to be lifted.
“Especially if we are talking about the reopening of Disneyland with limited capacity, on the opening day at Dodger Stadium there will be fans in person,” she said.
“But I really hope that we can stay aligned so that there is no confusion from one county to the next.”
Supervisor Kathryn Barger agreed with Hahn, saying that LA County should align its public health order with the state and neighboring counties.
“I believe that clarity and consistency lead to higher compliance rates,” said Barger, adding that she wanted to prevent local residents from traveling to other counties with less restrictions.
Barger also asked Ferrer to get guidance quickly so that companies can plan ahead and prepare for changes to the rules.
Ferrer cautioned the council that, although the number of cases and the rate of positivity from the test has dropped sharply in recent weeks, things could easily get worse if residents became negligent about infection control measures.
“This is the month I would say – the month of March, the beginning of April – when we have to be extraordinarily cautious,” she said. “Because we’ve been here before. We’ve been here with reopenings. We were here on Thanksgiving and Christmas trips. We have already seen what happens on vacation if we are not very careful. … We have to keep everyone alive now so they can be vaccinated and stay alive. So this would be a time for extreme caution. “
She specifically pointed to the spread of variants of the virus that causes Covid-19, which can spread more easily from person to person. Ferrer said the variant first identified in the UK has increased its reach in Los Angeles County, and is now believed to be responsible for 10% of all COVID cases in the county. The so-called West Coast variants are even more prevalent, according to state data.
The City News Service contributed to this report.