Written by Natalia Toliver
Within the next few weeks, San Diego will likely move into the red tier of Gov. Newsom’s flawed Blueprint for a Safer Economy. The State has laid out three different pathways to move into the red tier.
Pathway one focuses on case rates. The county case rate must fall under 7%, and last week we were just shy of it at 8.8%. The state also looks at the testing positivity rate and a highly controversial “health equity rate”. San Diego, thankfully, has cleared both of those requirements.
Pathway two focuses on the state goal of reaching 2 million vaccines in the “lowest Vaccine Equity Quartile, or the ZIP codes hit hardest by the coronavirus.” Once the two million is hit, the state will lower the case rate restrictions and allow the county to start moving into the red tier. Therefore San Diego county’s case rate will just have to be below 10%.
As of March 8, the State’s vaccination dashboard stated that 1.9 million doses have been administered. Therefore the State should hit two million very soon.
Pathway three focuses on the controversial Health Equity Metric. According to the State, if a county has a declining case rate that does not change by more than 5%, the county can advance one tier. San Diego’s overall positivity rate was 3.3% and healthy equity testing positivity was 4.5%. These rates meet the orange tier requirements, but since counties can only move up one tier at a time, it would allow San Diego County to move to the red tier.
Despite San Diego inching towards the red tier, it is not enough. More and more states are rolling back restrictions and allowing their residents to return to normal life. Meanwhile, California is being left in the dust and all who live here are forced to suffer. The governor of Texas said that “families in Texas have the freedom to determine their own destiny.” Why can’t families in California have that same freedom?
