Newsom hopes to reopen California in June. But what if Sacramento’s COVID cases keep rising?

Sacramento health officials say they will fully reopen the local economy on June 15 – if the state gives the expected OK – even though the county faces a higher COVID-19 infection rate than the state as a whole and has seen several slight upticks in recent weeks.

County Health Chief Dr. Olivia Kasirye on Tuesday said that early tentative decision is based on her sense that by mid-June, Sacramento’s COVID-19 case rate will have taken another turn downward as more people get vaccinated, especially younger people who have been the group most likely to be infected in recent months.

“When the state health order goes away, we will also end our (county health) order,” Kasirye said. The two orders, which impose virus-related restrictions, are essentially identical.

Even then, though, Kasirye said she expects Sacramento County to continue with an emergency declaration and a requirement that people wear masks in public.

Earlier Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the state plans to fully open the economy in mid-June as long as the state’s COVID-19 infection rate holds steady. California has had one of the lowest rates in the nation.

The governor said state health officials also will monitor the still-dropping hospitalization rates and improving vaccination numbers before making a firm decision on a June 15 full reopening.

Overall, infection and hospitalization numbers and rates continue to fall in California, but some areas – including the Bay Area and Sacramento – are seeing less progress recently.

Sacramento County appears overall to have hit a plateau in the number of new cases and hospitalizations after dramatic decreases since a mid-December peak.

The county is seeing about eight new cases daily per 100,000 residents. That’s about 150 new cases a day, far fewer than the peak days in December and early January when the county frequently saw more than 1,000 new infections.

But Sacramento has one of 10 highest COVID-19 rates among California’s 58 counties over the past few weeks, according to a recent state assessment. In contrast to Sacramento’s case rate, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Yolo counties all have a daily case rate of four infections per 100,000 residents.

Notably, the number of people in hospitals suffering from severe COVID-19 in Sacramento County has dropped from a peak of 518 a few days before Christmas to 91.

The county remains in the state’s highly restrictive “red tier,” which requires most businesses, churches, schools, and other group gathering places to restrict the number of people in the facility at one time.

Kasirye said she is confident, given increasing numbers of vaccinated people in the county, that Sacramento will qualify for the less restrictive “orange tier” by the end of this month.

She said she is basing that on the fact that everyone age 16 and older will be eligible to get a vaccine as of April 15.

“I am hoping we can get past this plateau,” she said. “I thought we would have met the criteria to get to orange by now. I am hoping we can push through.”

One local health care system, UC Davis Health, sped up its efforts Monday, announcing it would begin vaccinating anyone age 16 and up as of Tuesday. Later Tuesday afternoon, the system announced it had already filled all available vaccine slots for this week, but would begin sign-ups for further appointments as more vaccine doses arrive in the coming days.

This story was originally published April 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.