California became the first state to announce an “endemic” approach to the coronavirus, unveiling policy that focuses on prevention and quick reaction to outbreaks, according to The Assoc. Press.
” — for Shots, Masks, Awareness, Readiness, Testing, Education and Rx, which refers to improving treatments for COVID-19.
Republican leaders who have criticized Newsom’s handling of the pandemic also critiqued his latest announcement, the AP reported. Jessica Millan Patterson, the state’s GOP chairwoman, called it an “extra-large helping of word salad” and called on the governor to “follow the lead of other blue states and end his state of emergency or lift his school mask mandate.”
“Surveillance, testing, vaccination and treatment make the context very different and make it appropriate to shift our response from a pandemic response of trying to do everything possible to a more rational response to try to implement things that we have strong evidence that work,” he said. Under the California plan, if a higher level of the virus is detected, health officials will determine if there is a new variant. If so, state and federal officials have a goal to determine within 30 days if the variant responds to existing tests, treatments, vaccines, and prior infection.