CA To Fully Reopen June 15; 16 Counties Move Tiers

CALIFORNIA — Sixteen California counties will move into new tiers Wednesday as officials look to lift all COVID-19 restrictions on businesses, gatherings and recreational activities June 15, though a statewide mask mandate will remain in place.

Assuming continued availability of vaccines and no spikes in COVID-19 hospitalizations — particularly among people who have been vaccinated — the state will do away with its Blueprint for a Safer Economy, the four-tier, color-coded system that has guided economic reopening through a series of restrictions and capacity limits. That system has been in place for 31 weeks, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Tuesday news conference.

California will look more like "business as usual" this summer so long as people continue to wear masks, remain vigilant and take steps to protect themselves from the coronavirus, Newsom said.

Read: How To Get The Coronavirus Vaccine In California

Counties moving tiers Wednesday include: Contra Costa, El Dorado, Humboldt, Imperial, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, Riverside, San Benito, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Joaquin, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Tulare and Ventura. See what's open in your county here.

"It is incumbent upon all of us not to announce, 'Mission accomplished,' ... but to continue that vigilance that got us where we are today," Newsom said. "We are seeing bright light at the end of the tunnel."

The announcement came as California surpassed significant milestones: administering more than 20 million vaccine doses, including 4 million in the state's most disadvantaged and hardest-hit communities, Newsom said. Reaching that 4 million threshold will allow multiple counties, including San Diego and Riverside, to immediately advance to the less restrictive orange tier of the state's economic blueprint.

More than seven in 10 Californians older than 65 have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, Newsom said. The same is true for four in 10 of those 16 and older.

He urged Californians to get a COVID-19 vaccine and reminded the public that people can receive a vaccine regardless of ability to pay or immigration status.

"This is really a race: these vaccines against the variants, against the mutations," Newsom said.

Newsom warned that California remains constrained by vaccine supply, though all residents 16 and older will be eligible to sign up for a vaccine appointment April 15, Newsom said. The state anticipated receiving a "modest but not substantial" increase in its vaccine supply this week, he added.

California hopes to lower the vaccine eligibility age to 12 if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives the all-clear for states to do so.

California health and human services Secretary Mark Ghaly said the June 15 date was chosen because it marks two months after COVID-19 vaccines are made available to all Californians 16 and over.

The decision to lift all blueprint requirements came in response to rising vaccination numbers and continued decreases in all key pandemic-tracking metrics such as case numbers, positivity rates and hospitalizations.

"With all of that, we are at the stage where we're ready to consider the next aspect of our pandemic response," Ghaly said. "The road to this moment hasn't been easy. We have come together as Californians to save thousands of lives. And now we look at what is beyond that Blueprint for a Safer Economy that has been guiding California's slow public health-minded transition and opening of our economy. ... We look to get to [the] end of the blueprint."

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Ghaly said scrapping the blueprint — which will be done statewide, regardless of where individual counties may rank at the time in the tier system — "really means that everyday activities will be allowed, and businesses can open with common-sense risk-reduction measures."

"This means the end to our color-coded tiers," he said. "You can go to movies, to the beach and see family."

Ghlay noted that the June 15 date could be adjusted if the state begins over the next two months to experience increases in hospitalization numbers or a sudden lack of vaccine supply. He urged all residents to ensure the move occurs on time by continuing to practice infection-control measures.

"We want to emphasize that we continue to focus over these now 10 weeks from today, a period where we continue to push out vaccinations and continue to focus on those personal protective measures, those mitigating measures — wearing our masks in settings, especially indoors [and] when we're in crowds," Ghaly said.

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Officials stressed that the mask mandate will continue, even if the economy reopens this summer. California will be "soberly and thoughtfully led by data," and the mask mandate won't be axed "on a political whim," Newsom said.

"We do not subscribe to the point of view of some of these other states" that are seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Newsom said. The governor said he was disappointed to see tens of thousands of strangers packed into baseball stadiums elsewhere on opening day.
"This disease continues to be rampant, continues to be deadly," he said.

"We will only keep moving toward this June 15 date, not only by emphasizing vaccines, but also by emphasizing the ongoing work of Californians," Ghaly said. "This really continues to be on our shoulders to make the responsible decision to keep our masks on, to avoid crowds and other settings where we still might encounter COVID."

Nearly 3.6 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in California since the beginning of the pandemic, and more than 58,000 people have died as of Monday, the most recent day for which data was available.

Other parts of the country are seeing surges that spurred U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky to warn the nation that she felt a sense of "impending doom." But California's COVID-19 statistics have continued to improve. Seven COVID-19-related deaths statewide were reported Monday.

— City News Service contributed to this report