California moves toward getting rid of reopening tier system

California is moving toward getting rid of its color-coded reopening tier system after June 15 as millions of residents receive Covid vaccines.

California Department of Public Health officials announced Monday that more than 20 million Californians had received at least the first dose of the vaccine, including 4 million from the state’s lowest-income communities, triggering a change in the current thresholds on the tier system. If the state maintains sufficient supply of the vaccine, and hospitalization rates continue to drop, the state will end the tier system on June 15, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly announced Tuesday.

“The entire state will move into this phase as a whole,” Ghaly said. “We can go to the movies, the beach, see families; we will do this all with science and data as our guide.”

It remained unclear Tuesday morning how much of an impact the change will have on school reopening in the fall. Under the current tier system, schools can offer in-person instruction after remaining out of the purple tier for 14 days. Schools in counties in the purple tier may offer in-person instruction to kindergarten and elementary students as long as the “average adjusted case rate” is below 25 cases per 100,000 population per day in that county, and they file a Covid Safety Plan.