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Amid Covid Surge, California Governor Gavin Newsom Announces New Regional Stay-at-Home Order

Regional Stay At Home Order:

After a startling jump in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and various state health officials announced a Regional Stay-at-Home Order beginning Saturday, December 5th. 

Unlike the Stay-at-Home Order enacted in March, this order is to be implemented in a region if its Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity is below 15 percent. The order would stay in effect for at least three weeks after the initial implementation, but the overall duration would depend on when the region’s four-week ICU capacity projection meets the 15 percent requirement.

As of 3:20 p.m., December 11th, three regions have an ICU capacity below 15 percent and are under the Regional Stay-at-Home Order. This includes the Greater Sacramento region, with an order that began at 11:59 p.m., December 10th. Here are the current percentages of ICU capacity for each region:

Bay Area: 17.6 percent ICU capacity

Greater Sacramento: 12.7 percent ICU capacity

Northern California: 27.4 percent ICU capacity

San Joaquin Valley: 0.0 percent ICU capacity

Southern California: 5.3 percent ICU capacity

More than 30 million Californians are directly affected by the Regional Stay-at-Home Order and, with an increasing 7-day average positivity rate at 8.4 percent, this number is unlikely to decline anytime soon. 

As Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations surge following the Thanksgiving holiday, the probability of statewide restrictions has only grown. Numerous infectious disease experts blame holiday gatherings across the country for this sudden increase in cases. 

With more holidays approaching, concern about another potential surge is widespread. In an interview with CNN, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated that managing the virus at Christmas “could be even more of a challenge than what we saw with Thanksgiving.” Fauci also went on to acknowledge that people need to continue in their efforts to mitigate Covid-19 transmission, saying the country is “in a very critical time.”

What Happens Next? 

According to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), California is expected to receive the first state shipment of the Covid-19 vaccine in mid-December. That shipment includes 327,000 doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. The doses will be distributed in varying numbers throughout six regions, which differ from those set in the Regional Stay-at-Home Order. The figures below represent the number of doses delegated to each region:

Region Ⅰ: 126,750

Region Ⅱ: 80,497

Region Ⅲ: 8,592

Region Ⅳ: 35,145

Region Ⅴ: 16,706

Region Ⅵ: 59,910

Gov. Newsom stated in a December 3rd press conference that the state expected to obtain the vaccine doses “anywhere between December 12th and December 15th,” though he acknowledged that the dates could change.

Published just two days after that press conference, CDPH Allocation Guidelines for COVID-19 Vaccine offer an explanation as to how prioritization is applied in vaccine distribution. The main determinants of priority include the type of facility or role in which an individual works, the location of that facility, and attributes of that specific person, such as age and other potential risk factors.

These guidelines also describe the three tiers that are to receive doses of the vaccine during Phase 1a, the first phase of vaccine distribution. These tiers include various healthcare professions, ranging from paramedics and EMTS in the first tier to specialty clinics and laboratory workers in the third tier. The general public, however, is not included in this phase of vaccine distribution. 
As multiple experts have said, it is unlikely that the general public will have access to a Covid-19 vaccine this year. In November, Dr. Fauci told NPR’s Rachel Martin that by “the end of April, the beginning of May, June, July, … it’d be much more likely that you’ll have, quote, ‘the general population’ … get vaccinated.”

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