CA's Coronavirus 'Equity Metric' Could Impact Reopening Timeline

CALIFORNIA — The Golden State added another benchmark for the state's largest counties to meet before advancing through the risk-assessing COVID-19 blueprint Tuesday. Going forward, counties will not be able to reopen further unless they reduce transmissions in marginalized communities.

The new equity metric went took effect Tuesday, helping Humboldt county move into the yellow, or minimal, tier, Dr. Mark Ghaly, California Health Secretary announced at an afternoon news briefing.

To move forward with reopening, a county must now ensure that test positivity rates continue to fall in the most "disadvantaged" neighborhoods, proportionate to the rest of the county.

“Our entire state has come together to redouble our efforts to reduce the devastating toll COVID-19 has had on our Latino, Black and Pacific Islander communities,” said Acting State Public Health Officer Dr. Erica Pan in a statement.

Under the new metric, counties with more than 106,000 residents are required to show a decline in positive cases among low income, Black people, Latinos and Pacific Islanders.

Ghaly said that health officials will look at how the lower 25 percent of each county is doing on the Healthy Places Index and compare positive tests within those populations to the rest of the county.

While the new metric could force counties to provide more resources to disadvantaged populations, it could also slow the statewide reopening process, barring some counties from moving forward on the blueprint.

"If the [county moves] to the less restrictive tier but that lowest [25 percent does] not, then the county will be slowed in its movement forward," Ghaly said Tuesday. "We use that test positivity number and look countywide to ensure that they are both moving forward into a less restrictive tier."

However, Ghaly added, if the test positivity rate for these marginalized communities moves down two tiers as well as countywide cases, then the metric can help a county reopen faster, as it did for Humboldt County Tuesday.

No counties were prevented from moving forward in the tiering system because of the new metric Tuesday.

Eight counties were able to move into reopening tiers, with Merced, Ventura and Yuba counties moving into the red substantial tier.

Counties that remain in the red tier for two weeks may consider reopening schools for in-person instruction, pending approval from the region's health department.

Restaurants will be allowed to resume indoor dining at 25 percent capacity and so will personal services such as nail salons and aestheticians, museums, zoos and movie theaters. Gyms and fitness centers will reopen indoors at 10 percent of their capacity.

Inyo, moved into the moderate or orange tier, while Humboldt, Plumas, Siskiyou and Trinity counties moved into the yellow tier.

Two counties saw a spike in cases and moved backwards on the tiering system, with Tehama County moving back into widespread purple and Shasta County moving into red substantial.

The overall state positivity rate, 2.7 percent, was still relatively low compared to the summer. More than 1,677 cases were reported Tuesday.