COVID tier hits orange in Marin
Easing of restrictions helps indoor businesses
Marin will progress to a less restrictive coronavirus safety tier on Wednesday as it continues to negotiate with the state over its stake in vaccine management.
“We’re moving from the red tier into orange as we had anticipated,” Dr. Matt Willis, Marin County’s public health officer, told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. “Our case rates are now 2.5 per 100,000 residents per day, which brings us well below the four per day necessary to move into the orange tier.”
The move into the orange tier will relax indoor operation restrictions for a number of sectors.
Retail and grocery stores will now be allowed to operate at 100% capacity. Restaurants, museums, movie theaters, houses of worship and higher education lecture halls will be allowed to operate at 50% capacity. Gyms, fitness centers, breweries and wineries will be allowed to operate at 25% capacity.
Bars that do not serve food will now be able to operate outdoors. Non-essential offices may reopen, although working at home is recommended by health officials.
Willis said that under the best of circumstances the earliest Marin could advance to the next less restrictive yellow tier would be April 14, but he expressed doubts the goal is attainable so soon.
“I don’t want people to assume that the coast is clear, that we can let down our guard,” Willis said. “We are still at risk as a community.”
Willis said there has been a slight uptick in new infections in Marin in the past few days.
“Right now, it is too early to know if that represents a trend,” Willis said. “But in the context of increases in cases we’re seeing in other parts of the country and region, it’s something we will be keeping a very close eye on.”
The county continues to negotiate with the state regarding how much control it will have over local vaccination distribution beginning April 1.
More than 47% of Marin’s adult population has received at least one vaccine shot while 25% are fully vaccinated. Willis said at the county’s current vaccination rate — 3,700 doses per day — all of Marin’s adults could be inoculated by mid-May, about a month earlier than previously forecast.
Marin receives a certain amount of vaccine from the state, which it shares with MarinHealth, and uses it to vaccinate low-income residents who are uninsured and face obstacles to getting shots. Marin and other counties are concerned that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent decision to have Blue Shield manage vaccine allocations for the state will interfere with their efforts to provide equal access to vaccinations.
The state has announced it will allocate 40% of vaccine
doses to ZIP codes most impacted statewide. Marin and some other counties are concerned that this plan will leave out underserved communities in their jurisdictions.
“The counties will not be signing agreements with Blue Shield but rather will be entering into a memorandum of understanding with the state of California,” Hyacinth Hinojosa, the county’s emergency operations center director, told supervisors Tuesday.
Because Marin is still negotiating the terms of the agreement with the state, the supervisors on Tuesday delegated the authority to sign the final agreement to Supervisor Dennis Rodoni, the board’s president, and county counsel.
Hinojosa said the agreement must be signed by March 31 for Marin County to continue receiving its
vaccine allocation from the state.
Hinojosa detailed four key issues involved in the ongoing negotiations. First, counties want the state to consider their recommendations for ongoing vaccine distribution along with Blue Shield’s recommendations. Second, they want the state to commit to continuing to provide adequate vaccines to meet the needs of their high-risk communities.
Third, counties want to be allowed to distribute their vaccine doses to community clinics and other vaccine providers so as to reach their underserved residents. Lastly, Marin County wants to delay use of the state’s MyTurn website for vaccination registrations until the site can target at-risk groups for specific vaccination opportunities.
For example, Willis said, vaccinations will be limited to people in the county’s underserved population over three days this week at the county’s Marin Center site.
Supervisor Katie Rice asked Willis how concerned he is that new variants will derail Marin’s effort to return to a state of normalcy.
“My sense is this is a neck-and-neck race,” Willis said. “The next four weeks are going to be pivotal.”
Willis said it’s unclear why the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first identified in the United Kingdom in October, has not caused a spike of new cases in California, as it has in Europe and some U.S. states.
“If we can get our people vaccinated before this variant gains a foothold, we may dodge this,” he said. “It’s that close.”