State plans to reopen June 15
Newsom: Most restrictions to end, depending on vaccine supply and low hospitalizations
In the most significant sign yet that California is emerging from its long pandemic winter, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced the state will “fully reopen” its economy on June 15, lifting nearly all of the restrictions that have guided daily life for more than a year.
Newsom said he plans to end those regulations so long as vaccines are widely available and the number of coronavirus patients being treated in hospitals remains low — though a mask mandate and limits on large events such as conventions and music festivals would remain in place.
The plan means the end of the complex color-coded system of rules known as the “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” that has governed an uneven reopening effort across California’s 58 counties since last summer.
Instead, officials would allow restaurants, bars, stores, movie theaters, museums and practically all other businesses statewide to resume operations at full capacity both indoors and out
side. Newsom said there would be “no barrier” to having children attend school in person.
“We will be getting rid of the colored tiers, we will be moving past the ‘dimmer switch,’ ” Newsom said at a news conference in San Francisco on Tuesday morning. “We can confidently say by June 15 that we can start to open up as business as usual — subject to ongoing mask-wearing and ongoing vigilance.”
Newsom has no immediate plan to end the mask requirement, saying, “The disease (and) the data will make that determination.”
Local officials also will have the authority to implement their own stricter regulations beyond the state’s rules.
Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith, a regular critic of the state’s reopening decisions and the vaccine rollout, called Newsom’s announcement “premature” given the rise in COVID-19 variants and shortage of vaccines. But the county is unlikely to enact different rules on its own, Smith said.
“The virus will decide when the pandemic is over, not the governor,” Smith said. “To try to predict the future months away is foolhardy.”
Pete Sittnick, who runs Waterbar and Epic Steak on San Francisco’s Embarcardero, said he is hopeful Newsom’s announcement will mean clearer rules for businesses. Sittnick’s restaurants have twice had to shut down and restart indoor dining, and workers have often had to act as front-line enforcers of COVID-19 regulations, turning down people who ask to be seated as large groups or reminding guests to wear their masks.
He remains cautious about whether fully reopening in June will be safe for the restaurants’ staff and guests but said the possibility is “encouraging.”
“It sounds optimistic — and quite frankly with all of the negative that we’ve had to encounter over the last year and a half, optimism is good,” Sittnick said.
Under the current reopening plan, counties are placed in one of four colorcoded classifications based on criteria measuring how prevalent the virus is locally. Sixteen counties statewide are advancing in the existing tier system this week, including Contra Costa, Sonoma and Napa counties, which will move into the orange reopening stage today.
When asked whether the state would need to hit specific targets before reopening in June, Newsom — who is likely to face a recall election later this year motivated in large part by voters’ frustrations over his handling of the pandemic — said the decision is not pegged to “precise numerics.”
Instead, he and Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly described a plan that hinges on the state avoiding another surge of the virus and continuing its current trajectory of increasing vaccine supply and low infection rates over the next 10 weeks.
California’s hospitals are now treating a record-low number of COVID-19 patients, a far cry from the horrific winter surge that overloaded some intensive care units and claimed tens of thousands of lives. The seven-day average of new coronavirus cases has plateaued at fewer than 3,000 per day statewide, and Newsom said California’s test positivity rate ranks lowest in the country.
After a sluggish start, California on Tuesday passed 20 million vaccine doses administered. At a pace of more than 350,000 shots per day, it is set to pass the 30 million mark by the end of this month.
But plenty of challenges could threaten the full reopening date: Demand for vaccines continues to far outstrip the supply of shots, which led to a scramble for appointments last week when California expanded eligibility to millions of residents 50 and older.
Everyone 16 and older will become eligible on April 15, which could further strain supplies. Newsom said the state, which is receiving 2.4 million doses this week, doesn’t expect to get substantially more than that until May. He acknowledged getting appointments for everyone in the widening eligibility pool “is going to take some time, a number of weeks, perhaps over a month.”
New variants, which have fueled alarming case increases elsewhere in the United States, could also throw a wrench into the plan.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco epidemiologist, said that while he believes the state will likely be ready for the dramatic reopening by June, he would like to see more data on the B.1.1.7 variant — particularly as it pertains to children.
“We have been slowly reopening, and June 15 is still a ways away — there is still some time to prepare,” ChinHong said. “There’s nothing stopping him from reversing it if things go south.”
Even under the relaxed rules, California will still prohibit convention centers from hosting events of 5,000 or more people until October unless they can prove all attendees have been vaccinated. The state has not yet set a date for allowing large music festivals such as Coachella — though Ghaly said officials are working with organizers to eventually allow those events.
The governor did not directly answer a question Tuesday asking whether he would consider reintroducing the tiered system if cases and hospitalizations rise again.
Ghaly said officials will monitor COVID-19 case levels and hospitalizations, especially any cases in which vaccinated people wind up hospitalized. All three of the COVID-19 vaccines are generally effective at preventing people from falling ill, but they’re even better at preventing severe or lifethreatening cases that land people in the hospital. If the variants change that, Ghaly said, it would be deeply concerning.
“If we see any concerning rise in hospitalizations, we will take the necessary precautions,” he said.