On this week’s Tier Tuesday, most counties continue to make
progress on case and vaccination rates, while calculations
account for a change in the Blueprint for a Safer
Economy framework that helps counties remain in a current
tier despite small changes in data.
These refinements to the Blueprint resulted from strong
advocacy by the CSAC Officers, CSAC Kitchen Cabinet, and CSAC
Rural Caucus Working Group. Merced County started the week in
the purple tier, and CSAC, working in conjunction
with Merced County, was able to ensure accurate adjudication of
the county’s data, which included an artificial spike in cases
due to backlogged reporting by a local pharmacy. As a result,
Merced moved into the red tier by mid-week.
Inyo, the only other purple county, also moved to red on Tuesday
(congratulations!), while Kern and Lake Counties moved from red
to orange. Lassen County joins Alpine and Sierra Counties as the
only three counties in yellow. As of today:
22 counties are in red
33 counties are in orange
3 counties are in yellow
The state’s overall 7-day positivity rate is an excellent 1.5
percent, and fully 50 percent of the state’s adults have received
at least one vaccine dose. In light of the hard work by counties
to contribute to the state’s improving COVID-19 metrics, CSAC
continues to engage the Governor’s administration on Blueprint
adjustments in advance of the June 15 statewide reopening date.
