Several Bay Area counties, except for Santa Clara, are set to lift indoor masking mandates next week when the statewide mandate expires. Beyond then, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office is working on a plan for COVID-19 policies going forward.
At a press conference Wednesday in Oakland, Newsom stated that officials are working to move the state from pandemic protocols and guidelines to the next stage, when the coronavirus is considered endemic.
"We've seen about a 75% reduction since our peak, we were at 152,000 cases on Jan. 4," he said at the conference, adding the state averaged about 32,000 cases per day over the week preceding Wednesday.
In a little over a month, the number of cases has dropped significantly, spurning changes.
"Broadly, I think we're moving in a direction that will be embraced by the vast majority of cities and counties in the state over the coming weeks," he said.
And that will include an "endemic plan," which Newsom said his team has been working on for the last month and is likely to be released in a matter of days.
That will involve changing protocols at California schools. According to Newsom, his team has been working for weeks with county officials and local educators on what the next moves should be.
"We are getting closer and closer to making a public announcement on mask-wearing in our public schools, and no one looks forward to that more than I do," he said.
It's a complicated process, as vaccination rates in school-aged children are significantly lower than they are for adults, he said. Nearly 80% of California adults are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while only around 28% of children aged 5-11 have been vaccinated.
"We're looking back at the last two years, what worked, what didn't, what we've all learned, the journey we’ve been on together," Newsom said. "It reflects the moment we're in."
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