California is rapidly leaving the holiday season peak behind.
The latest state data shows the seven-day positivity rate continues to drop and is now at 5.4 percent. That is the lowest it has been since just after Thanksgiving, when numbers began to accelerate rapidly.
New confirmed COVID-19 cases in California are also down by another 30 percent over the last week and hospitalizations continue to fall as well, although they still remain well above the numbers seen during the summer surge.
There is also optimism as more mass vaccination sites open in the Bay Area.
San Francisco opened a large clinic at the Moscone Center over the weekend, the city’s second, and officials say the first few days were a success.
"We know that we have enough vaccine to do over 3,000 people a day each day this coming week, and there are appointments available for people 65 and older or healthcare workers, so jump on," said Supervisor Matt Haney.
Haney said the success of the city’s clinics demonstrate that San Francisco has the infrastructure in place to vaccinate residents quickly, as long as the supply is stable.
"Educators, teachers, our frontline workers, essential workers, restaurant workers and ultimately everybody have access to this vaccine," he said. "I do think that with this site at Moscone and other sites we’ve set up, that if we get the supply in place, we can begin to do a volume that will allow us to meet our goal here in San Francisco to vaccinate everyone who wants to be vaccinated by June."
Santa Clara County will open a mass site at Levi’s Stadium on Tuesday that will offer 5,000 shots a day to eligible residents to start, with the ability to ramp up to 15,000 a day when supply allows.
Alameda County is moving into the next stage of vaccinations. Workers in education, law enforcement, emergency responders and food and agriculture are eligible to get their shots starting Monday.
More than 800,000 Californians have now been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and more than 3.6 million people (about nine percent of the state's population) have received at least their first shot of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
That puts California in about the middle of the pack among states when it comes vaccinations per capita, although some states on the East Coast have had to slow down inoculations in recent days after a snow storm forced many outdoor vaccination sites to close.
Overall, the statewide R0 number continues to hold below one at 0.78, which means 100 infected people would be expected to pass the virus along to 78 others. Epidemiologists think the R0 needs to stay below one in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.
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