California Governor Gavin Newsom was asked on Wednesday whether he thinks the entire state could be outside the most restrictive purple layer of his Project for a safer reopening until the first day of spring.
“Yes,” said the governor, “based on the trend lines.”
These trend lines include numbers from the state’s largest county, dropping to the point where schools can reopen for face-to-face classes. Los Angeles Public Health officials announced the news Tuesday night.
Newsom recalled that a month ago the state had a rate of positivity of the test of 7 days of 11.4%. On Wednesday, that figure was 3.5%.
In terms of what this means for counties that are progressing to less restrictive levels of their reopening plan, Newsom said:
“Remember … We have a county, Feathers … that is moving from the purple layer to the red layer today. I foresee a substantial number in the next week and even more in the following weeks. ”
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He then went even further.
“If the trend lines continue – and, in fact, I think that is the case – we will see the counties move,” said the governor, “not just from purple to red, but more and more, from red to orange. and, hopefully, in the number that is already in orange, you will see many more that are in that yellow layer as well, which is more permissive in the layers that we launched 24 weeks ago in our project for a safer reopening. “
Newsom then added a warning.
“It is difficult to predict the future, especially with this virus,” noted the governor. “But, mainly, considering the variations”, things can change.
He then said that the updated totals for the detected virus mutations – some of which are considered to be more transmissible – were as follows: 189 cases of the UK variant, 0 instances of the Brazilian mutation, 2 of the South African strain and 1,834 instances of the California’s own West Coast variants. That last number increased by 50% compared to last week, when it was 20% in the previous week.
“West coast variants [are] something that many people didn’t pay attention to, ”said Newsom, but it can be problematic.
Last week, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer revealed that “at least 50% of our samples showed the West Coast variant.” She then shied away, saying, “more research needs to be done”.
Some who have done more research suspect that the variant may not only be more transmissible – like the UK variant – but also resistant to the vaccine. But again, more research needs to be done.