California officials are contemplating what things will look like in the nation's most populous state once millions of people are vaccinated and they move to phase out restrictions on gatherings and businesses that have altered life for a year.
When officials last summer designed the four-tiered, yellow-to-purple system California now uses to decide whether people can dine indoors, go to the movies or gather with friends, they did not include a green tier — a recognition that a return to normalcy after the pandemic was far off. Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration is preparing to add one.
“The likelihood of hitting that green tier is probably sooner than some of us thought when we were looking at the summer and fall," Dr. Mark Ghaly, California's health secretary, said Thursday.
State officials rely on a complicated formula, including virus spread, to determine which activities are restricted in each county.
But a green designation won't mean “go” for all things. Ghaly said such a label would still mean wearing masks and staying physically distant. He declined in an interview to offer more specifics on what restrictions would be maintained or to provide a threshold of vaccinations the state hopes to meet to allow such a go-ahead.
Earlier Thursday, state Public Health Director Dr. Tomás Aragón forecast that California could achieve herd immunity when about 75% of the population has been vaccinated, though that could change as the virus mutates.
—Christopher Weber and Kathleen Ronayne, Associated Press