SAN DIEGO COUNTY TO REMAIN IN RED TIER FOR NOW
Move to less-restrictive status not a possibility until April 7
San Diego County has no chance of squeaking out of the red tier this week even if the state loosens the limits for the next-least-restrictive orange tier.
A technicality in the state’s reopening blueprint, the California Department of Public Health confirmed in an email Tuesday, means the soonest the region could go orange is April 7.
Meanwhile, the number of vaccine doses expected to arrive in the region continues to look up.
This week, the county expects to receive nearly 133,000 vaccine doses, according to Nick Macchione, director of the region’s Health and Human Services Agency. That figure is likely an underestimate as it doesn’t include doses sent directly to pharmacies, the San Diego Veteran’s Administration, the military and Native American tribes, among other groups.
The region’s capacity to administer shots easily exceeds its supply. Locations run by the county, health systems and other vaccine providers can inoculate 35,000 people a day, according to Mac
chione. That means the region would need 245,000 doses a week to reach its maximum daily vaccination capacity — nearly twice this week’s expected shipment.
Vaccine demand has outpaced supply since the beginning of the region’s rollout. Thursday will be no exception. That’s when all San Diegans 50 to 64 years old become eligible, with anyone 16 and up becoming eligible on April 15.
The state’s reopening blueprint, first put in place in August 2020, now takes vaccination into account in its calculations of how much activity should be allowed in businesses and other places where people gather outside their homes.
Because generally betteroff areas have tended to have better access to early vaccine supplies — in part because well-paid health care workers were the first to receive doses — the state has connected the pace of reopening to the amount of vaccine sent to areas deemed to have the worst access to quality health care, and other environmental factors that aid healthy living.
Once at least 4 million vaccine doses have been sent to the most-disadvantaged areas across California, the state will move the orange tier’s lower threshold from 3.9 to 5.9 cases per 100,000 residents. As of Tuesday, those areas had received more than 3.4 million does, suggesting that hitting the 4 million mark may occur late this week.
As it did when the region hit the 2 million mark, the California Department of Public Health will retroactively promote all counties to the orange tier who have previous weekly case rates that fall under the new limit. San Diego posted a score of 4.9 this week and 5.5 last week. While neither score is low enough to meet the current orange tier threshold of no more than 3.9 cases per 100,000, both scores will be orange worthy once the threshold falls to 5.9.
Given that a county must have at least two consecutive scores in the orange zone before moving up from red, and the fact that the state has said it will look back and retroactively grant orange status to those whose two previous scores meet the 5.9 mark, San Diego should be among those who jump up to orange if the threshold falls this week, right?
Wrong.
The state’s reopening blueprint requires counties to remain in their current tiers for at least three weeks before moving up to less-restrictive tier. San Diego has only been in the red tier for two weeks — since March 17.
In an email, the California Department of Public Health confirmed that San Diego “would need both two consecutive weeks of better metrics and a total of three weeks in a tier and thus “would not move right away” if adjustments are made later this week.
A third qualifying score next week, though, would bring the orange tier the following day, April 7.
None of this tier tweaking affects what’s set to happen on Thursday. That’s when outdoor entertainment venues and amusement parks will be able to resume limited operations and all adults age 50 and older will qualify to make vaccination appointments.
Turning orange, though, would bring immediate increases in the extent to which various types of activity are allowed.
Restaurants could move from using 25 percent to 50 percent of their indoor seating capacities, gyms and fitness centers could use 25 percent of their indoor spaces — more than double the current 10 percent — bars would be able to open outdoors, outdoor live events could move from 20 percent to 33 percent occupancy of assigned seating and amusement parks could move from 15 percent to 25 percent indoor and outdoor occupancy.
Vaccination is the key to avoiding falling down the state’s reopening ladder, and it’s clear that San Diego is making significant progress in that regard.
Though roughly 591,000 residents age 50 to 64 technically qualify to get vaccinated starting Thursday, a very significant slice of that age group already has one vaccine or another coursing through their bodies.
About 94,000 in San Diego County have already been immunized because they fell into existing vaccination tiers such as first responders, health care workers, food and agriculture workers and teachers. Another 106,000 have gotten one vaccine dose but still need a second shot to maximize immunity against the coronavirus.
That leaves 391,000 San Diegans 50 to 64 who haven’t been immunized, many of whom will begin searching for appointments on Thursday. They’ll be joining a large pool of already-eligible people who are either in need of a second dose or still searching for their first. And while state officials project California’s vaccine supply to ramp up to 3 million doses a week by the end of April, it will likely take weeks to meet the current overwhelming demand.
San Diego has so far remained outside the nationwide trend of increasing coronavirus infections. Tuesday’s daily tracking report included 227 new positive tests, slightly fewer than Monday’s 290 and a far, far cry from winter months when 1,000 cases a day often seemed low. Local hospitalizations continued on a beneficial trajectory, dropping to 181 with COVID in local hospital beds Monday.