In the past few weeks, a number of counties have moved forward with reopening and a few have reversed course.

By Marie Tae McDermott

Good morning.

It’s been over a month since California moved from a county monitoring system to a new framework based on tiers. The new system assesses county metrics weekly and assigns color-coded tiers based on daily case numbers and positivity rates. Counties must stay in their respective tiers for three weeks before moving. They can move to a less restrictive tier once they have met that tier’s criteria for two weeks in a row. If their numbers worsen for two weeks, they will be moved to a more restricted tier.

The system also has equity measures built in. The pandemic has disproportionately affected communities with African-Americans, Latinos, and low-income and essential workers. Latinos account for nearly 50 percent of Covid-19 deaths despite making up 38 percent of the state’s population.

To combat this disparity, state health officials introduced a metric to help mitigate transmission rates in vulnerable communities. The new equity metric is applied to counties with populations greater than 106,000 and stipulates that for a county to move forward, it has to ensure that test positivity rates in its most disadvantaged neighborhoods do not significantly lag behind overall county test positivity rates.

Although there are concerns that additional measures would delay counties from advancing, Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s health secretary, said in his briefing on Tuesday that so far, none of the counties have been held back because of the equity metric. In fact, Humboldt County moved into the least restrictive tier this week in part because of its focus on equity, he said.

What does each tier mean?

There are four color-coded tiers ranging from most restrictive to least: purple, red, orange and yellow. When the system was introduced in August, 38 counties were in the most restrictive purple tier. This week, that number was down to 16 counties, including Los Angeles, Imperial and Mendocino. These counties have reported widespread infections, and most indoor businesses remain closed.

Counties in the red tier have sustained a substantial spread of infections and are allowed to resume some indoor activities with limited capacities. There are 24 counties in this tier, including San Diego, Riverside and Sacramento. Counties in this tier can open gyms and movie theaters at limited capacity. They are also allowed to open schools for in-person instruction if they have been in the tier for at least two weeks in a row.

There are 18 counties in the orange and yellow tiers, which allow for more indoor activities, like eating in restaurants. With seven counties in the yellow tier, Dr. Ghaly said there were no immediate plans to create a new level with even fewer restrictions. There are still months of flu season to get through, he said.

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