California’s COVID-19 emergency will officially end in February as Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state has enough resources and plans to manage the pandemic without the need for a formal declaration that gives the governor the power to suspend or change laws.
His office made the announcement Monday, touting the state’s relatively low transmission and hospitalization rates, and saying the delay until next year will give the state’s health care system any flexibility it still needs for a possible winter surge in cases and hospitalizations, and give everyone enough time to prepare for the phaseout.
“Throughout the pandemic, we’ve been guided by the science and data – moving quickly and strategically to save lives. The State of Emergency was an effective and necessary tool that we utilized to protect our state, and we wouldn’t have gotten to this point without it,” Newsom said in a statement. “With the operational preparedness that we’ve built up and the measures that we’ll continue to employ moving forward, California is ready to phase out this tool.”
Newsom declared a state of emergency for the coronavirus on March 4, 2020, shortly after an older adult was the first confirmed death from the disease in California — the first of nearly 95,000 deaths in the state to date.
Since then, Newsom has used his authority under the emergency declaration to issue 596 orders. Some were small, like delaying deadlines for filing taxes or renewing driver’s licenses. But others were life-changing, including issuing a statewide stay-at-home order.
“While the threat of this virus is still real, our preparedness and collective work have helped turn this once crisis emergency into a manageable situation,” California Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly said in the statement.
