California Has Low Covid Transmission Rates

 Calif. Vaccinations

Sept 16.  NYTimes. California Report.

 

Here’s some good news to start your morning: California has less Covid-19 transmission than any state in the country.

That’s according to federal officials, who on Wednesday ranked the state’s current coronavirus case rate the lowest in the nation.

Sure, there are mask mandates and other measures to credit, but most deserving of thanks is the Golden State’s high level of vaccinations.

More than 82 percent of Californians aged 12 and older have at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Only nine states have more of their populations immunized.

The surge of the Delta variant has been a real-life experiment in the effectiveness of vaccines, one that appears to have helped Gov. Gavin Newsom survive a recall election on Tuesday. For the most part, places with high vaccination rates have been protected from the virus.

And in California, the Delta surge appears to have done something else as well: pushed vaccination rates even higher.

The number of people getting vaccinated here began to stall in June, but then spiked as the Delta variant took hold in late July. Ultimately, about 1.6 million Californians got a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine in August, up from the 1.1 million who did so in July.

It’s difficult to tease out what exactly led to the rise in vaccinations. California has recently mandated vaccines for state employees, teachers and health care workers. There’s also been new evidence of the strong protections the vaccines offer, even against the Delta variant.