Governor Gavin Newsom discussed the latest on the pandemic on Monday, saying ICU capacity is still not improving in some parts of the state.
That means the stay-at-home order may have to be extended in some regions, including in the San Joaquin Valley.
"We have initiated what we called the stay-at-home orders that were part of a three-week regional stay-at-home order when the ICU capacity traded below 15%. Remind you, San Joaquin and southern California stay-at-home orders were the first to be enacted, understandably, so based upon the ICU capacity you just saw. That four. Three- week period is now due to expire, both in San Joaquin and southern California, begging the question, is it going to be extended?" said Newsom. "it is clear and understandable that it's likely those stay-at-home orders will be extended."
No official extension of the order has been announced yet.
Tuesday, officials are expected to announce the earliest the San Joaquin Valley and southern California may be eligible to exit the order.
"They are going to administer the vaccines by their staff, pharmacists, technicians, pharmacy technicians, we did a waiver on that. They are going to be scheduling, coordinating and all the on-site work. All the associated supplies will be done by this partnership. So we are not pulling, I guess the importance of this slide is to say we are not using our existing staff. This is why we went into this partnership with CVS and Walgreens. With the scarcity of staff, we don't want to use ours for key supplies and pull it away from our other efforts. So that's why this partnership is so important."
After Phase 1-A comes phase 1-B, which includes people who are unable to work from home, live or work in highly impacted areas, or are most likely to spread the virus to coworkers or the public.
Phase 1-B vaccination is expected to start at some point in January.
Newsom said so far more than 260,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have already been administered in California.
