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Ghaly said he’s concerned that hospital capacity is still pressed and challenged, particularly in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, across the Central Valley and in the eastern Sierra and the rural north. “So the impact on hospitals might be quicker,” he said.Īlso, there is no discussion that stay-at-home orders will return again this winter, Ghaly said, so hospitals will in some ways face some challenges that they didn’t last year. With the more recent coronavirus variants, data suggest that if people do become severely sick, they become sicker sooner, Ghaly said. “We see other states in the United States struggle with overwhelmed hospitals and a high number of cases,” Ghaly said. In addition, many states have been struggling with a winter COVID-19 surge due to the still-dominant Delta variant.
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Scientists suspect that vaccinations and boosters will still provide significant protection against severe illness, however. Still, this is not as good as the vaccine effectiveness against Delta, which was 95% following the booster, according to Topol. Early data suggest effectiveness against symptomatic illness for the two-shot Pfizer vaccine falls to 35%, but rises to 75% following a booster shot. There continues to be concern about a potential reduction in the effectiveness of COVID-19 immunizations against symptomatic illness resulting from Omicron. While there has been some optimism that Omicron may cause less severe illness, “this will take time to figure out,” Frieden wrote. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director, tweeted. “Omicron will almost certainly overtake Delta and cause new waves of infection globally,” Dr. Britain has recorded its first death of someone infected with the Omicron variant. The new mask orders arrive as the Omicron variant - discovered only last month - has spread rapidly around the globe. Officials in Britain have also reordered an expansion of indoor mask mandates. The state is also recommending that travelers who return to or visit the state get tested within three to five days of their arrival.Ĭalifornia’s announcement came on the same day New York enacted its own statewide mask requirement in indoor public spaces, excepting only settings where everyone inside must be vaccinated. 15.Ī number of California counties - including Los Angeles, Ventura and Sacramento - and most of the San Francisco Bay Area already have their own indoor mask mandates that were implemented in the summer and have no end dates. The statewide indoor mask mandate order will last a month, expiring on Jan. The order will affect roughly half the state’s population, including San Diego and Orange counties, the Inland Empire, and swaths of the Central Valley and rural Northern California. “We are proactively putting this tool of universal indoor masking in public settings in place to ensure we get through a time of joy and hope - without a darker cloud of concern and despair.” Mark Ghaly, California’s health and human services secretary, said Monday. “This is a critical time where we have a tool that we know has worked and can work,” Dr.
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks California as having a high level of transmission of the coronavirus, the worst tier in the federal agency’s four-tier scale. County health officials across the state say they suspect they may be seeing the start of a winter jump in coronavirus cases. The move comes as coronavirus case rates in California have risen by almost 50% in the last 2½ weeks, and COVID-19 hospitalizations are up by nearly 15%. Faced with rising coronavirus cases and growing concerns about the Omicron variant, California is ordering a statewide mask mandate for indoor public spaces to go into effect on Wednesday.