California’s coronavirus numbers continue to show signs of improvement.
The percentage of coronavirus tests that came back positive over the past seven days — a closely watched indicator for reopening the economy — has dropped to 3.5%. That’s down from over 11% a month ago.
Hospitalizations for coronavirus patients have also dropped 38% over 14 days, and the rate of infection in the state has fallen to 0.65 — meaning each infected person infects fewer than one other person.
“That’s the lowest I’ve seen it,” California Department of Public Health Director Dr. Tomás Aragón said at a meeting of a state vaccine advisory committee on Wednesday. “That’s really good news.”
Vaccinations are ramping up across the state, though not enough to meet demand.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said that the mass vaccination sites that have opened across the state over the past week, at locations such as the Oakland Coliseum in Alameda County and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, cannot operate at capacity.
“We are throttling back many of those sites because of constraints on supply,” Newsom said Wednesday as he visited a vaccination clinic at a packinghouse in Coachella (Riverside County), an area that’s home to many farmworkers.
At the current pace doses are being administered, most Californians will have to wait until June or July to be vaccinated, Newsom said.
Under recent revisions to state guidelines, medical marijuana workers and veterinarians now will have priority access to vaccines.
However, although both groups are now technically eligible under state guidelines — including workers who handle the growth, production, storage, transport and distribution of cannabis — they will not necessarily get immediate access from individual counties, which are often forced to limit access due to insufficient vaccine supplies.
The state is hoping its vaccine distribution contract with Blue Shield, to administer 3 million doses a week, helps meet its targets.
In the meantime, mobile community clinics continue to pop up across the state.
A drive-through, mass vaccination site opened Wednesday at Alameda County fairgrounds in Pleasanton. Run by the county, Stanford Valley Care and Sutter Health, it offers shots for health care workers and people 65 and over.
“It gives you a sigh of relief,” said Carl Sauceda, 79, of Hayward, who got his shot Wednesday morning.
Salonia Williams, 70, of Hayward, said she was not in a hurry to get vaccinated, but when she checked online and saw appointments open, “I thought, why wait? I feel good. I’m ready to dance.”
Earlier in the week, Newsom indicated that a “substantial” number of counties are likely to enter the red tier on California’s four-tiered reopening system.
The red tier — which allows indoor dining at 25% capacity and other indoor spaces such as movie theaters, museums and gyms to open with limits — would be an improvement from the purple tier that most counties, including all in the Bay Area, are in.
During his visit to Coachella, Newsom said he reached a spending deal with state lawmakers on small business grants, stimulus checks for individuals and housing for farmworkers infected by COVID-19.
It includes an additional $24 million allocation to Housing for the Harvest, a program that puts farm and food processing workers up in hotels if they contract the virus and have no place to isolate.
“It’s candidly been underutilized, and we recognize that,” Newsom said of the farmworker housing program. “And the purpose of this new appropriation is to maximize its effectiveness.”
Chronicle staff writers Catherine Ho and Michael Williams contributed to this report.
Aidin Vaziri is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: avaziri@sfchronicle.com
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California’s positivity rate drops sharply, a promising indicator for reopening - San Francisco Chronicle
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