Inland Empire Lags Behind As State Set To Reopen

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — For what is expected to be the last time, California released the weekly update Tuesday to its color-coded Blueprint for a Safer Economy framework. As expected, the Inland Empire remained in the orange tier, while nearly all of Southern California has progressed.

San Diego County moved into the state's least restrictive "yellow tier" Tuesday, following two consecutive weeks of an adjusted new daily COVID-19 case rate of fewer than two cases per 100,000 residents. The move into yellow comes a week before the state scraps the tiered reopening blueprint on June 15. San Diego joins other yellow Southland counties such as Los Angeles, Orange, Santa Barbara and Ventura.

Riverside and San Bernardino counties, however, remained in the state's more restrictive orange tier on Tuesday because state thresholds have not been met. On Tuesday, Riverside County did surpass the yellow-tier metrics for the first time, but the state has required counties meet the thresholds for two consecutive weeks before progressing.

Riverside County residents appear more reluctant than some other Southern California communities to get vaccinated. For example, as of Monday, nearly 1.68 million San Diego County residents — almost 60 percent of people 12 and older — were fully vaccinated compared to Riverside County with 864,140 or 41.1 percent of eligible residents vaccinated.

Roughly 4.5 million Los Angeles County vaccine-eligible residents — or 54 percent — were fully vaccinated as of Monday. Statewide, 53.3 percent of Californians were fully vaccinated, according to California Department of Public Health data.

Vaccine hesitancy has been an issue in some pockets of Riverside County, and headlines about breakthrough cases may not be helping. On Friday, a Napa County woman who was fully vaccinated died from the coronavirus. According to state health officials, she was older than 65 and had underlying health conditions. The woman had the B117 UK variant now dominant in California.

Health officials point out that breakthrough cases are possible but say it's rare to become severely ill with COVID if the virus is contracted after full vaccination. A California Department of Public Health spokesperson told Patch on Friday that positive COVID test results have occurred at a rate of less than 0.03 percent in California.

"Out of more than 17 million fully vaccinated individuals, there have been 5,305 post-vaccination cases identified in California between January 1, 2021, through May 26, 2021," the spokesperson said. "Some post-vaccination cases are expected because no vaccine prevents 100 percent of disease."

The CDPH spokesperson also reported that at least 373 people with confirmed post-vaccination COVID-19 were hospitalized in California.

"However, it is important to note that we are often missing data on hospitalization (approximately 50 percent of cases have missing hospitalization data). Of those 373 individuals, we do not know what proportion were hospitalized for COVID-19 symptoms or illness or were hospitalized for another reason and tested for COVID-19 upon admission," the spokesperson said.

Despite some vaccine reluctance in Riverside County, the number of all coronavirus patients under intensive care has fallen to five locally — the lowest total in more than a year.

According to data released Tuesday by the Riverside University Health System, 32 people countywide were hospitalized with coronavirus. That figure includes the five ICU patients.

The total number of COVID cases recorded since the public health documentation period began in March 2020 was 301,128.

A total of 4,618 deaths from virus-related complications have been recorded since the pandemic began, according to RUHS data.

Most health restrictions are expected to be rescinded statewide on June 15, with a few mandates continuing for "mega events," defined as indoor concerts with 5,000 or more people, and outdoor gatherings with 10,000 or more attendees. A full list of what limits will be lifted can be found at https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy/.

While the state will reopen, Gov. Gavin Newsom has opted to maintain a state of emergency in California.

"This disease has not been extinguished, it's not vanished," he said. "It's not taking the summer months off."

The governor's move gives him ongoing leeway to exercise additional authority and pass executive orders without having to go to the state legislature.

Riverside County residents can make a vaccine appointment at www.rivcoph.org/COVID-19-Vacci...