California has achieved its initial goal of administering more COVID-19 vaccines in the most affected and disadvantaged areas. The milestone marks the state’s effort to distribute doses more equitably and also paves the way for significant economic reopening.
With 2 million doses now going into the arms of residents living in target communities across the state, officials are set to loosen the criteria needed for counties to move out of the strictest category of California’s four-tier reopening plan.
The move allows some large urban counties, such as Orange, to leave the banned purple layer for the first time in months and others, including Los Angeles and San Bernardino, to leave for the first time since the color-coded system was unveiled in late August.
Moving to the less stringent red level means that these three counties – along with nine others, according to a Times data analysis – will be allowed to resume meals in restaurants and movie theaters with a 25% capacity, as well as students from the 7th to the 12th return to face-to-face classes, reopen internal academies and dance and yoga studios with 10% capacity and expand the maximum capacity allowed in non-essential stores and libraries in the coming days.
Museums, zoos and aquariums can also reopen internal operations in the red layer, at 25% capacity.
Amusement parks can also reopen with 15% capacity with other modifications in the red layer counties as of April 1. Long-closed attractions like Disneyland, Universal Studios, Knott’s Berry Farm and Six Flags Magic Mountain are weeks away from receiving visitors – who must be California residents – after closing for almost a year.
However, the extent of the reopening depends on local health authorities, as they may adopt stricter rules than state ones.
While some counties clamor across the pandemic for a wider latitude to reopen their economies more broadly, others have taken a slower approach.
LA County officials, the most populous in the country, have confirmed that they will broadly align with the state’s red-tiered rules as soon as the region officially advances. Wider reopening will be possible starting on Monday, they said.
“This milestone is the result of companies and individuals working together and doing their part to prevent COVID-19 from spreading,” said county director of public health, Barbara Ferrer, in a statement. “It will be up to everyone – companies and residents – to continue driving through the transmission and follow safety guidelines closely to keep everyone as safe as possible, avoiding the increase in cases. Even when a relatively small number of companies and individuals do not adhere to security precautions, many others experience tragic consequences. “
County supervisor Hilda Solis called the move “good news, especially since many of our small businesses have suffered the financial impact of this pandemic and our students struggle to keep up with distance learning.”
“We reached that milestone and went down to the red level because, as a county, we work hard, care for each other and come together to defeat the dark winter wave,” she said in a statement. “Although we are taking steps to reopen some of the most affected sectors of our economy, that in no way means that we can let our guard down now. We owe our neighbors, our local businesses and our children to remain vigilant so that reopenings are safe and lasting. The use of masks and physical distance remain critical. “
The accelerated advance in LA and elsewhere is made possible through a review of the California reopening roadmap that was revealed last week.
In an attempt to address inequalities in vaccine implantation, the state is now reserving 40% of the available supplies to be administered to residents in the poorest areas, as identified 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 postal codes across the state in places like South Los Angeles, Eastside, Koreatown, Chinatown, Compton, southeastern LA County, east of San Fernando Valley, Santa Ana and several predominantly Latin communities along the 10th motorway corridor between Pomona and San Bernardino.
As part of the new targeted strategy, the state has set goals to administer the first 2 million doses in these areas, then 4 million. After reaching each mark, California plans to revamp its reopening roadmap to make it easier for counties to resume economic operations more broadly.
The state system classifies counties into one of four color-coded layers based on a few factors: positivity rate testing, a health equity metric designed to ensure that the positivity rate in poorer communities is not significantly worse than the overall number of the county and, crucially in terms of broader reopenings, case rates.
Originally, counties had to record a rate – adjusted based on the number of tests performed – equal to or less than 7.0 new cases of coronavirus per day per 100,000 people to move from the purple to the red layer.
With the state having reached its goal of 2 million doses, counties with a case rate of up to 10 new cases per day per 100,000 people are now eligible to move forward. Counties have yet to register two consecutive 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 more – San Diego, Riverside, Sacramento, Ventura, Tulare, Santa Barbara, Monterey, Sutter, Yuba, Lake and Tehama – recorded a week’s worth of red-level data and would need to hit the mark again next week to make progress.
If they did, that would increase the number of non-purple counties to 47, which are home to 90% of the state’s population.
When the state reaches its goal of administering 4 million doses in the hardest hit areas, the limit to move to the even milder orange level would be relaxed from a requirement of less than 4 new daily cases per 100,000 inhabitants to less 6. Enter the level less restrictive yellow would require an adjusted case rate below 2 new daily cases per 100,000 people, compared to the current requirement of less than 1.
Governor Gavin Newsom said this week that the state is also working on a new green layer “in anticipation of this bright light now at the end of this tunnel”, although he did not specify what it would look like.
“As we start to reopen, when we reach 10, 15, 20 million vaccinations, it gets closer and closer [to] herd immunity, so we’ll start to make it clear that these layers were temporary, ”he said. “They are not permanent and there is something beyond orange and yellow.”
Over the past week, providers across California administered an average of nearly 188,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine per day – bringing the cumulative total to just under 11 million injections, according to data compiled by The Times.
Currently, Californians aged 65 or over, or who work in the specific areas of food and agriculture, education and day care, and health and emergency services, can be vaccinated.
As of Monday, around 4.4 million residents with certain underlying disabilities or health conditions will also be able to join the queue.
Authorities say they expect the supply of available doses to continue to be reduced in the coming weeks, although they are hopeful that supplies will be more robust in the spring.
Amid optimism about the vaccine’s release, health officials continue to call for caution, saying California cannot afford to let its guard down and risk another resurgence of a disease that has killed more than 55,000 people worldwide. state.
Taking steps 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.
State metrics are moving in a promising direction, however. In the last week, California reported an average of 3,881 new cases of coronavirus a day, a decrease of about 33% compared to two weeks ago, the Times data show.
Hospitalizations have also fallen dramatically since the peak of the autumn and winter peak. On Wednesday, 3,477 patients with COVID-19 were hospitalized across the state, with 961 in intensive care. Both figures are the lowest since mid-November.
“This disease is still deadly. This disease remains ubiquitous, ”said Newsom. “It is not a spring break. This disease will not take away the summer. It will only be extinguished if each of us does what it takes to mitigate the spread. That’s why it’s so important that we don’t run the 90-yard run. “