SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KRON) – State health leaders say they surpassed their goal of vaccinating one million Californians within ten days.
In his weekly COVID-19 update, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly says the state successfully ended up vaccinating more than 1.5 million people.
“Because of data delays, we’re confident that it’s even more than the 1.5 million,” Dr. Ghaly said.
Governor Gavin Newsom originally set the goal to vaccinate one million people within ten days as California struggles to distribute its supply of 3.2 million vaccines.
Dr. Ghaly said Tuesday the pace is picking up, noting the state Friday administered the most doses since distribution began with more than 110,000.
As the state works to improve vaccine distribution, state health leaders are working to stabilize and study new variants identified in California, including the L452R strain, seen in several large outbreaks in Santa Clara County.
“Working to determine if this variant similar to the UK variant has any increase in infectiousness if it will impact vaccinations and any other areas of concern,” Dr. Ghaly said.
State leaders say they are still working aggressively to contain COVID-19, Dr. Ghaly with some good news, noting the rate of transmission is below 1.
“We’re in a posture where the spread of COVID is not growing the state, but decreasing at a rate that is a little slower than we’d like,” Dr. Ghaly said.
State health leaders say hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and the state’s overall positivity rate are declining.