In US first, California adopts ‘endemic’ Covid-19 policy
- California governor presents plan to confront Covid-19 beyond its pandemic phase
- Top infectious disease expert Fauci says time to start ‘inching’ back toward normality
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced the first shift by a US state to an “endemic” approach to the coronavirus pandemic that emphases prevention and quick reactions to outbreaks over mandates, a milestone nearly two years in the making that harkens to a return to a more normal existence.
Newsom said the approach which includes pushing back against false claims and other misinformation - means maintaining a wary watchfulness attuned to warning signs of the next deadly new surge or variant.
“This disease is not going away,” he said in advance of his formal announcement. “It’s not the end of the quote, unquote, war.”
A disease reaches the endemic stage when the virus still exists in a community but becomes manageable as immunity builds. But there will be no definitive turn of the switch, the Democratic governor said, unlike the case with Wednesday’s lifting of the state’s indoor masking requirements or an announcement coming February 28 of when precisely the school mask-wearing mandate will end.
And there will be no immediate lifting of the dozens of remaining executive emergency orders that have helped run the state since Newsom imposed the nation’s first statewide stay-home order in March 2020.