Overtaken By Events?

Above is the PSA that's still being put out on Facebook this morning by the US Department of Health and Human Services. It may as well be from a year ago -- the message hasn't changed. But in the last couple of months, the big issue for COVID has been vaccines, and the suggestion, which I quoted yesterday from the LA County health department, is that with only 10% of the population vaccinated, the statistics are plummeting. The health department in its latet update says this:

Today, the State released updated numbers; L.A. County's adjusted case rate dropped from 4.1 new cases per 100,000 people to 3.7 new cases per 100,000 people. The test positivity rate dropped from 2.0% to 1.8%. If the County continues to maintain current levels or declines in the case rate and test positivity rate, it is possible in early April for the County to move into the orange tier. The County needs to remain in the red tier for three weeks prior to be assigned to the orange tier.

These tier designations are intricate. For reasons not explained, LA County had to remain below target numbers for only two weeks to move from the most restrictive purple tier to the less restrictive red tier, where it sits now -- except that its numbers have been improving so rapidly that it's eligible for the yet less restrictive orange tier, or would be, except it now needs to wait three weeks to get there, not two.

I got a haircut last week. The barber shops reopened in February, when Newsom relaxed the holiday lockdown. The rules for a haircut are super-intricate. Mask. Procedure for moving elastic ear bands while cutting around ears. Only one customer per chair in the room, no waiting inside. Chair elaborately sanitized between uses. Customer temperature taken at the door. I asked the barber if there was any relaxation between life in the purple tier and life in the red tier. He said no, and probably not in the orange tier, either. But he was careful in his responses not to imply there was anything unnecessary about anything. You can figure out why.

I checked. LA County, although it currently qualifies for the orange tier, must still wait until next month for it to take effect. Here in part is what a "looser" tier still involves:

• Gatherings: Indoor gatherings strongly discouraged, allowed with modifications. No more than three households.
• Limited services: Open with modifications. [I don't know what these are.]
• Outdoor playgrounds and outdoor recreational facilities: Open with modifications.
• Hair salons and barbershops: Open indoors with modifications. [My barber is probably right, no change.]
• All retail: Open indoors with modifications.
• Shopping centers: Closed common areas. Reduced capacity food court.
• Personal care services: Open indoors with modifications.
• Museums, zoos and aquariums: Open indoors with modifications. Indoor activities max 50% capacity.
• Places of worship: Open indoors with modifications. Max 50% capacity.
• Movie theaters: Open indoors with modifications. Max 50% capacity or 200 people, whichever is fewer.
• Hotels and lodging: Open with modifications. Fitness centers can open with 25% capacity.
• Gyms and fitness centers: Open indoors with modifications. Max 25% capacity. This includes climbing walls and indoor pools.
• Restaurants: Open indoors with modifications. Max 50% capacity or 200 people, whichever is fewer.

So the differences in the various "tiers" are largely semantic, but the problem now becomes that whatever the differences, they'll be changing each month. The list above is just a summary -- the protocols for each type of activity are actually thousands of words. And it's still red light-green light. There's a yellow tier after the orange, and it still has lots of detailed controls. So far in California, there's no procedure for taking any county enterely out of the COVID tiers. Any total relaxation will still be off in the indefinite future, with no published plan for how this will take place,

Some states have actually just done away with this, or have effectively begun to bypass it. The effect of vaccinations, combined with herd immunity that the experts have pooh-poohed but seems likely to happen, will likely overtake blue-state lockdown schemes much more quickly than anyone has anticipated. In every case, these controls have been imposed by governors' executive orders. This incudes California. Newsom, facing a recall, needs to sit down with his handlers and figure out how to back himself out of this situation

The question continues to be why, with such huge disparities now among US states in restrictions vs an overall improving statistical outcome, any state maintains restrictions when states like Texas continue to improve without them.