June 15 Marks a New Day in California

Come June 15, businesses in California can open their doors without COVID-19 restrictions

On Friday state officials rolled out some of the most highly anticipated coronavirus-related guidelines yet, those that will move California into a reopened age on June 15.

Come June 15,  businesses can open their doors without COVID-19 constraints on capacity or requirements for physical distancing, and where people who are fully vaccinated for the disease no longer need to wear masks in most situations.

California will also align with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when it comes to travel, according to Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s Health and Human Services secretary.

“We are now at a point, given our metrics that we’ve been watching, that … we can begin to talk about moving beyond the blueprint,” he said during a briefing.

Gov. Gavin Newsom hinted at such Thursday, telling KABC-TV Channel 7 that, with the new guidance released, “people can really paint that future and see themselves in it: Post-masks and post-any modification in this blueprint,” referring to the system of color-coded tiers that has guided re-openings statewide for the past nine months

“Our positivity rate has remained stable, 0.9 to 1%, our case rates continue to be among the lowest in the United States and our vaccination numbers are holding pretty steady, about 2 million over the last seven days,” he told the outlet. “And while we’ve seen a decline, we’re also seeing a little stability. This gives me confidence that we’re going to get to June 15.”

Though June 15 has been billed as California’s full reopening date, it remained somewhat unclear until now under what circumstances, if any, some safety modifications would remain in place.

When announcing the target date in early April, officials said sectors that had been included in what California calls the Blueprint for a Safer Economy would be allowed to “return to usual operations in compliance with Cal/OSHA requirements and with common-sense public health policies in place, such as required masking, testing and with vaccinations encouraged.”

As has often been the case throughout the pandemic, though, California’s plans have changed along with coronavirus conditions.

While the initial idea was to keep the state’s mask mandate in place, officials this week instead announced that Californians who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will be allowed to go mask-free in most indoor settings starting June 15 — a move that will bring the state into alignment with recent CDC guidance.

There will be some additional requirements is high-attendance indoor events.

The state will require organizers of indoor events with more than 5,000 people to verify that attendees are either vaccinated or have recently tested negative, according to Ghaly. The state will recommend, though not require, the same for outdoor events with more than 10,000 attendees.