Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly on Thursday outlined a set of seven areas California will continue monitor as cases from the latest surge fall and the state gradually relaxes rules around masking. Ghaly said the state will follow a strategy best remembered by the acronym “smarter”: shots, masks, awareness, readiness, testing, education, and Rx, shorthand for medical prescriptions and other treatments.
“We’re gliding into normal. We’re not announcing the normal,” Ghaly said. “The virus will drive what we do. We’re going to shift with the virus so we can keep the state as safe as possible.”
It was a more cautious tone than the one state officials struck last summer, when Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated the end of masking and COVID-19 restrictions with cartoon characters and confetti at Universal Studios.
That optimism was short-lived. Within a few months, the delta and omicron variants caused cases to skyrocket and prompted the state to reinstate its universal mask mandate.
Newsom, speaking from a Fontana warehouse, said California is leaning away from a reactive mindset and toward a plan that allows people to live with the virus.
“We have all come to understand... there is no end game. There is not a moment where we declare victory,” the governor said.
Ghaly said has become clear over the last two years that it is not practical or helpful to apply strict frameworks to COVID-19 because variants can differ so widely. Instead, he said officials would focus on cases, contact tracing and quarantine if a variant is particularly deadly, but emphasize reducing hospitalizations with a highly transmissible but milder variant like Omicron.
“Applying a ‘delta’ framework to omicron or an ‘omicron’ framework to delta proves to be inadequate and imprecise,” he said.
Here are more details on the seven pillars of the SMARTER plan:
— Shots — California will maintain capacity to administer at least 200,000 vaccines per day.
— Masks — The state will keep a stockpile of 75 million “high quality masks.”
— Awareness — Officials will continue tracking variants and communicating with the public.
— Readiness — California will continue monitoring wastewater and sequencing at least 10% of positive COVID-19 test specimens. The state will also maintain the ability to add 3,000 clinical staff to healthcare facilities if needed.
— Testing — California will maintain the ability to perform at least 500,000 tests per day, a combination of PCR and antigen.
— Education — California will work to keep schools open and kids in classrooms. It will expand school-based vaccine sites by 25%.
— Rx — The state will order clinically effective therapies to treat COVID-19 through federal partnerships.
Many leaders and health officials have begun to use the word “endemic” to describe the global battle with coronavirus. Infectious disease experts recently told The Sacramento Bee that the term doesn’t mean COVID-19 is any less dangerous or that new variants won’t raise the risk of death, but that the success of vaccines in preventing illness and death has paved the way for a new discussion on long-term priorities and safety measures.
Even Democratic lawmakers have expressed interest in winding down COVID-19 responses. State Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, on Thursday said the Senate will discuss an end to the state of emergency next month.
The state lifted its universal indoor mask mandate on Wednesday, saying it still “strongly recommends” that masks be worn indoors. Health officials say they’re expecting to make the same change for masking in schools by the end of the month.
Ghaly said as cases fall, the state’s overall mask advice will shift from “strongly recommends,” to “recommends,” and finally to “optional.”
Much of the state’s endemic plan will focus on being prepared. Ghaly said the state will keep a stockpile of at least 75 million masks and thousands of ventilators on hand while continuing to purchase testing and treatments.
Ghaly said the state won’t release thresholds for disease transmission that triggers specific restrictions, but rather will be guided by how the virus changes.
The Newsom administration released statements from health experts praising the new plan, saying it will allow the state to act nimbly as it continues battling the virus.
“California’s SMARTER plan should represent a turning point in managing the pandemic from taking whatever the virus brings us to being prepared to manage whatever challenges come next,” said Andy Slavitt, a former senior advisor for COVID-19 response in the Biden administration. “This plan will act as a model for states around the country.”
Dr. George Rutherford, head of the division of infection disease and global epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco, said it’s a plan that builds on the knowledge of the last two years of the pandemic.
“COVID-19 will be with us for several years to come, and having a nimble plan that can respond strategically to the twists and turns the pandemic will undoubtedly take will be invaluable for Californians,” he said.
It’s unclear what is ahead. Ghaly said officials “aren’t predicting anything.”
“We aren’t out of the woods,” he said. “We are just more familiar with the woods and don’t need to live fully afraid of what’s behind the next tree.”
Many Republicans were skeptical of Newsom’s plan, saying it was inconsequential.
“In the most over-hyped announcement since the opening of Al Capone’s vault, Gavin Newsom today served an extra-large helping of word salad and little else,” said California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson. “Let us know when he decides to follow the lead of other blue states and end his state of emergency or lift his school mask mandate... .”
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