KTLA

California nears COVID-19 vaccine target that would ease reopening of businesses and public spaces

Jose Gutierrez receives the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from paramedic Madeline Plaut at a pop-up clinic in Hawaiian Gardens on April 3, 2021. (Wally Skalij/ Los Angeles Times)

California is on the precipice of administering 4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in its most disadvantaged areas — a hurdle that, when cleared, would trigger a rewrite of the state’s reopening blueprint to make it easier for counties to more widely reopen businesses and other public spaces.

State data show that, as of Monday, providers had doled out 3.93 million doses in the targeted communities, which fall within the lowest quartile of a socioeconomic measurement tool called the California Healthy Places Index.


On reaching 4 million doses, California will relax one of the metrics necessary for counties to progress into the lower tiers of its four-rung reopening roadmap.

As it stands now, counties have to record a coronavirus case rate — adjusted based on the number of tests performed — of below 4.0 new cases per day per 100,000 people to move into the second-least-restrictive orange tier. When the blueprint is revised, the requirement would be loosened to under 6.0.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.