{"id":24896,"date":"2020-05-18T14:23:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T21:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=24896"},"modified":"2020-05-18T14:23:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T21:23:20","slug":"california-department-of-public-health-announces-new-regional-variance-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=24896","title":{"rendered":"California Department of Public Health Announces New Regional Variance Opportunity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>New variance announcement for attestation includes criteria important for larger, more densely populated counties<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Counties must attest to updated case metrics, preparedness and response criteria<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SACRAMENTO \u2013 Given increased statewide and local capacity to respond to COVID-19, including stronger preparedness, continued stability in the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations, as well as increased ability to provide personal protective equipment to workers in essential sectors,\u00a0the\u00a0California Department of Public Health\u00a0announced today a new attestation opportunity for counties to move through Stage 2,\u00a0opening additional sectors of their economy at their own pace. To qualify, counties must attest that hospitalization and test positivity rates are\u00a0stable or\u00a0declining;\u00a0that they have\u00a0a significant level of preparedness with testing, contact tracing, PPE and hospital surge; and that they have adequate plans related to county-wide containment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Department also announced that starting today, some sectors\u00a0of the economy statewide\u00a0can begin reopening with modifications, including office spaces and counseling services in places of worship, curbside libraries and drive-in movie theaters.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cCalifornians have done incredible work flattening the curve and slowing the spread of COVID-19,\u201d said Governor Newsom. \u201cAs we seek an effective therapeutic or vaccine, we are moving into a new chapter in the fight against the disease \u2013 focusing on protecting public health by lowering the risk of transmission and aggressively moving to protect vulnerable communities. The virus will still be present in our communities, and it\u2019s as important as ever for Californians to take steps to protect themselves and their families. Wash your hands. Keep physical distance. If you have an underlying health condition that makes you more vulnerable to COVID-19, you should still stay home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">California began its regional variance process on May 7. Allowing this initial approach to move forward for approximately 10-14 days allowed the state and counties to see the early impact of these modifications to the statewide Stay-at-Home order. Anticipating the need and appropriateness of allowing additional counties to control the focus of restrictions for their own jurisdictions, state public health leaders\u00a0are now\u00a0creating opportunities for\u00a0additional counties\u00a0to assume more local control in Stage 2 and improve local level preparedness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><u>Second Regional Variance<\/u><\/strong><strong><u><br \/>\n<\/u><\/strong>The state outlined a new process that will be similar to the first variance process allowing for prepared counties to advance at their own pace through Stage 2. To qualify, a county must attest to:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Case Metrics<\/strong>: Stable or down trending hospitalizations, cases per population count and test positivity rate. This includes:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li>Stable hospitalizations\u00a0on\u00a0a 7-day average of daily percent change of\u00a0less than\u00a05%; or no more than 20 hospitalizations\u00a0on any single day over the past 14 days.<\/li>\n<li>14-day cumulative positive incidence of\u00a0less than\u00a025 per 100,000; or\u00a0testing positivity over the past 7 days of\u00a0less than\u00a08%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Adequate Preparedness Planning<\/strong>: A significant level of preparedness with testing, contact tracing, PPE and hospital surge, and planning\u00a0for long-term care facility\u00a0disease outbreak prevention and containment. This includes:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li>Testing\u00a0capacity. Minimum daily testing capacity to test 1.5 per 1,000 residents<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Testing availability for at least 75% of residents<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li>Contact tracing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>At least 15 staff per 100,000 county population trained and available for contact tracing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li>Hospital surge<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Hospital capacity to accommodate a minimum surge of 35% of their baseline average daily census.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li>Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF) disease outbreak prevention and containment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Plans\u00a0to prevent and mitigate infections in skilled nursing facilities<\/li>\n<li>SNFs have more than 14-day supply of PPE on hand for staff, with established process for ongoing procurement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><br \/>\nResponse Planning:\u00a0<\/strong>Producing\u00a0plans related to county-wide containment, including testing, contact tracing, vulnerable populations, congregate settings, acute care surge, and essential workforce.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The California Department of Public Health will accept second variance attestations beginning\u00a0today. This allows for approximately 10-14 days, the COVID-19 incubation period, between the introduction of the first variance and the second variance opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New variance announcement for attestation includes&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24897,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24896\/revisions\/24897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}