Hoping to hasten California’s emergence from the coronavirus pandemic, the state will begin channeling 40 percent of new vaccine doses to low-income communities hit hardest by the coronavirus, officials in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said late on Wednesday.
The strategy is an effort to make the vaccine rollout more equitable and reduced the number of counties considered most at risk, as well as speed California’s ability to reopen, officials said.
The targeted communities are defined using a composite “health equity” index that assesses need based on income, education, transportation and housing availability. State data has indicated that when vaccination efforts are targeted at poorer Californians, wealthier people have gamed the system. Black and Latino residents have been inoculated in smaller numbers than their white neighbors.
California faced a surge in infections in December and January, but cases have fallen 40 percent statewide — to late October levels — in the past two weeks, intensifying calls for the state government to relax restrictions.
Governor Newsom, whose handling of the pandemic has helped fuel a Republican-led recall campaign against him, has crisscrossed the state, opening vaccination centers and assuring people that immunization is the “light at the end of the tunnel.” But he has also made clear that the virus and its variants remain lethal: At least 287 new coronavirus deaths and 4,316 new cases were reported in California on March 2.
When the governor of Texas announced this week that the state would lift its mask mandate, Mr. Newsom tweeted that the move was “absolutely reckless.”
Administration officials said California would keep in place its mask mandate. The vaccine blitz, they said, was aimed at quashing the further spread of Covid-19 so people could go back to work and businesses could reopen safely.
About 1.6 million vaccine doses have so far been delivered in low-income communities.
Once two million vaccines have been administered in those locations, officials said, the state will adjust its color-coded tier system to make it easier for counties to move into less restrictive categories, which will hasten the reopening of schools. When there are four million doses in the targeted areas, additional tiers will be adjusted to further ease reopenings.
There’s been a lot of hopeful news lately about the nation’s vaccine supply. A third vaccine, from Johnson & Johnson, received emergency authorization over the weekend, and a rival drugmaker, Merck & Co., has agreed to help manufacture it. President Biden announced on Tuesday that the country would have enough doses available for every American adult by the end of May.
Now state and city governments face the challenge of getting all those doses into people.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced that three state-run mass vaccination sites — at Yankee Stadium, the Javits Center, and the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse — will begin administering vaccines around the clock.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said repeatedly that the city’s vaccination program was being held back mainly by lack of supply. Eligible New Yorkers have reported difficulties securing vaccine appointments, and there have been…
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