California due to open up vaccine eligibility for those over 16 years of age next week
California’s collective year-long ordeal spent shuttered and sheltered-in-place finally has a tentative expiration date: June 15.
Assuming all goes as planned, that’s the day that California will finally retire its color-coded tier system and let businesses and other gathering places open back up at full capacity.
Gov. Gavin Newsom: “We are seeing a bright light at the end of the tunnel and on June 15, all things being equal…we will be opening up this economy and businessas-usual.” But — and you knew there was a “but” — conditions apply.
• The mask-mandate isn’t going anywhere anytime soon
• The new June deadline only applies if hospitalization rates stay low and there’s more than enough vaccine to go around
• Schools are still a maybe. More on that below.
Why the announcement now? Because there was
more good news Tuesday.
California officially exceeded the 20 million dose mark — a symbolic benchmark, but a good reminder of just how far the state’s vaccination distribution program has come from its bumpy early rollout. State public health officials also say they’ve delivered 4 million of those doses to California’s most disadvantaged communities.
Newsom’s new June 15 deadline isn’t just a major policy shift. As CalMatters political reporter Laurel Rosenhall notes, it’s also a massive roll of the political dice.
The upside: The allbut-certain recall election coming down the pike is fueled by frustration over the governor’s handling of the pandemic and his onagain-off-again shuttering of the economy. Setting a clear end date could defuse some of that anger.
Loyola Marymount University’s Fernando Guerra, with the downside: “The risk is that the fourth wave may hit California, he’s going to have to backtrack, reinstitute some of the restrictions, and then it will reinforce the whole rationale for the recall.”
The two Republican candidates running to replace Newsom, the Republican Governors Association and the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board all accused Newsom of playing politics with the announcement.
But even if businesses can reopen by early summer, there’s still a giant, politically radioactive question yet to be answered: What about schools?
When asked about inperson instruction yesterday, the governor said that there will be “no barrier to having our kids back” in school by June 15. But he stopped short of proposing a state mandate.
That’s another risk for Newsom. If very many schools are still on Zoom come fall, it might be tough for him to convince ticked-off parents of school-aged children that the state is really back to “business as usual,” just as the likely recall campaign heats up.