California's New COVID-19 Plan Means Being Prepared to Live With It

If the first two years of the pandemic were like driving in heavy rain with worn-out brakes and no windshield wipers, then the next phase will be like driving the same road in good weather with brand-new brakes and wipers.

That’s how California health officials are viewing the future of living with the coronavirus, and they unveiled a plan Thursday that provides a road map for doing just that.

“While we can’t predict the future, we can better prepare for it,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom, as he laid out what sorts of resources and capabilities the state will need both to turn a page on the pandemic, and to stay prepared for the next variant or surge. “We have your back — we have learned a lot. We are not approaching this the way we did last year, the way we did two years ago.”

That preparation will include maintaining testing capacity, even as cases fall, as well as continuing to monitor cases through wastewater surveillance.

But Newsom was clear: There’s no declaring victory against COVID-19.

“Today is about turning a page, moving from this crisis mentality, moving from a reactive framework to a framework where we are more sentinel,” he said “[We are] moving away from a reactive mindset and a crisis mindset to living with this virus.”

The state issued a 30-page plan laying out what that means. Dubbed the SMARTER Plan — for Shots, Masking, Awareness, Readiness, Testing, Education and Rx (for therapeutic treatment) — officials say it will ensure that the state is ready to respond to changing scenarios.

It includes:

• The capacity to administer at least 200,000 vaccines per day on top of existing pharmacy and provider infrastructure.
• Maintaining a stockpile of 75 million high-quality masks.
• Maintaining capability to promote vaccination, masking and other mitigation measures in all 58 counties, including by partnering with at least 150 community-based organizations.
• Maintaining wastewater surveillance and enhancing respiratory surveillance in the health care system, while continuing to sequence at least 10% of positive COVID-19 test specimens.
• Maintaining the ability to add 3,000 clinical staff within two to three weeks of need and across various health care facility types.
• Maintaining commercial and local public health capacity statewide to perform at least 500,000 tests per day.
• Expanding school-based vaccination sites by 25% to increase vaccination rates as eligibility expands and vaccination requirements are enacted.
• Make clinically effective therapeutics available.

Most of what Newsom laid out won’t change the day-to-day reality for Californians, who still face varying local mandates depending on their city and county. The state has already lifted most of its restrictions — including the indoor mask mandate, which expired earlier this week. The school mask mandate will be revisited at the end of February, officials announced Monday.

Newsom said the state continues to let science and data lead its decision-making, and argued that his strategy has worked — he noted that California has experienced a far lower death rate than much of the nation throughout this pandemic.

“I just want to underscore that California, as it relates to larger states, has among the lowest death rates in the United States of America — 50% lower death rates in California than in a state like Florida,” he said.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s secretary of health and human services, said California needs to remain ready for future variants and seasonal surges of the virus. But instead of approaching future waves with fear, he encouraged Californians to have “humble confidence” in the tools the state has relied on to stem infections and deaths — including vaccines, masks and testing.

“We aren’t out of the woods. We are just more familiar with the woods and don’t need to live fully afraid of what’s behind the next tree,” he said. “We’ve learned that we can’t predict the future of the virus. But perhaps we can have a more predictable response to whatever the future brings.”

Ghaly warned that COVID likely will rear up again but says it’s “no longer a novel foe” and that Californians should be vigilant but not afraid.