Wednesday we officially entered the orange tier, with businesses able to expand their operations and more activities resuming.
San Diego County qualified to move to the orange tier under adjusted thresholds because the state reached its goal of administering 4 million vaccines to highest risk communities. Now, to stay in the orange tier, we must keep our case rate per 100,000 between 2 and 5.9. The county’s case rate now is 5.8.
We also have an important date to work toward – June 15 – when the state could fully reopen, putting the color-tier system behind us. This, of course, will depend on whether we have enough vaccine supply and keep hospitalization rates low. The mask mandate won’t be going away anytime soon though. But still, we are getting closer to the light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel.
In case you missed it, here is the summary of the changes that come with moving to the orange tier, based on the state’s guidance.
Variants update
The race between getting enough people vaccinated and emerging COVID-19 variants continues. Yesterday, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in Britain, is now the source of most new COVID infections in the U.S. The news comes as officials and scientists warn of a possible fourth surge of cases.
The CDC warned back in January that the B.1.1.7 variant could become the dominant source of COVID-19 infections. According to this New York Times article, California is one of the states where the variant is most widespread. Here in San Diego County, B.1.1.7 is currently the most widespread variant, with 410 cases confirmed to date.
