Sacramento is still in the purple tier as COVID rates drop. When could it move to red?
Sacramento’s coronavirus case rate continues to drop steadily, but the county has yet to record a week of credit toward advancing into the more lenient red tier of COVID-19 restrictions since being placed in the strict purple tier last November.
That could soon change, though. In the best-case scenario, Sacramento County could find itself in the red tier in about a week.
The three main requirements for a county to promote from purple to red are a test positivity rate below 8%, a “health equity” positivity below 8% in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods and a daily rate of fewer than seven cases per 100,000 residents, all for two consecutive weeks.
In this week’s update from the California Department of Public Health, Sacramento cleared the first two hurdles with test positivity of 3.8% and a health equity metric of 5.8%. But its 9.5 cases per 100,000 residents still came in too high, though it did fall from 12 in the previous week’s update.
However, CDPH recently announced a change to the tier structure that will take effect soon and benefit counties that are borderline in terms of case rate: Once the state as a whole has recorded 2 million vaccine doses administered in ZIP codes within the lowest quartile of its Healthy Places Index, the cutoff for exiting the purple tier will rise from seven cases per 100,000 to 10 per 100,000.
The change will be retroactive once that vaccination milestone is reached, meaning if it happens ahead of next Tuesday’s normally scheduled tier list update, Sacramento — along with many other counties that met both positivity requirements but had case rates ranging from seven to 10 per 100,000 — will get credit for meeting the red-tier requirements in this week’s update.
The lowest HPI quartile was reported at about 1.93 million vaccine doses as of a Wednesday state data update. Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a news conference that California expects to reach 2 million by this Friday.
County public health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye, speaking at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, affirmed that Sacramento “could go red tier as early as next week” or the week after.
In order for that to happen next week, Sacramento County will have to meet all three metrics — below 8% in both positivity metrics and under 10 daily cases per 100,000 — in the March 16 update from CDPH, and the state will have to reach the vaccine equity threshold as Newsom expects it to.
If the vaccine threshold is indeed met first and the county meets all metrics, Sacramento will be assigned into the red tier March 16 with the change effective March 17.
If California is still shy of the vaccine milestone by the March 16 update, the state will provide another tier list update one day after the 2 million mark is hit, in which Sacramento could be promoted.
If Sacramento’s case rate increases above 10 per 100,000 in the next weekly update, the county will have to start over and record another two straight weeks of meeting all red-tier qualifications.
Reaching the vaccine equity threshold before March 16 would also immediately place another dozen California counties, including nearby Placer, into the red tier, because they would get retroactive credit for meeting the requirements in both this week’s and the previous week’s updates.
Why is the red tier important?
The state’s red tier is a key reopening distinction that allows indoor restaurant dining and several other types of businesses such as gyms and movie theaters to resume indoor operations, with capacity limits and masks required.
It is also critically important for K-12 school districts. Within a reopening deal reached between Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers earlier this month, there is a $2 billion COVID-19 safety fund that will be distributed to public schools and districts. The state will incentivize return to on-campus learning by docking 1% of a district’s apportionment for each school day beginning April 1 that it does not meet certain reopening standards.
In all counties regardless of tier level, those standards include offering in-person instruction for grades K-2. But for counties in the red, orange or yellow tiers, on-campus learning must be offered to grades K-6 as well as at least one middle or high school grade in order to stay eligible for the full safety funding.
This is especially important for Sacramento County where, with the exception of Folsom Cordova Unified, no major public K-12 districts reopened for on-campus learning last fall. Natomas Unified recently resumed in-person learning for some elementary students.
Other districts that are still on distance learning, including Elk Grove Unified, Twin Rivers Unified and San Juan Unified, now have either tentative or finalized return dates, some of them for April 5 or April 6.
Because April 1 is a Thursday, an April 5 or April 6 return would see a district docked 2% or 3%, respectively, of the maximum funding.
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 8:05 AM.
