72.2% of Pasadenans Fully Vaccinated Against COVID-19

Public health officials announced Tuesday that 72.2% of Pasadenans over 12 years old had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Eighty-four percent of the city’s eligible population had received at least one dose of two-dose regimens, according to Pasadena Public Health Department data.

Meanwhile, health officials detected two new infections on Tuesday. No new fatalities were reported

In total, the city had documented 11,300 cases of the virus and 349 deaths.

Over the prior week, Pasadena saw an average of 0.9 new infections each day, according to public health department data.

While the bulk of COVID-19 restrictions will be lifted on June 15, Los Angeles County’s public health director warned that rules requiring masking and physical distancing will remain in place in some settings — most notably in schools, on public transit and in health-care Facilities.

“There are a few sectors where masking and distancing protections will be retained given the high risk of either unknown vaccination status, large numbers of people who are not vaccinated or the fact that they are, by their very nature, high-risk settings,” Barbara Ferrer told the county Board of Supervisors.

“These sites include schools, child-care facilities, camps, health-care facilities, high-risk congregate settings, indoor `mega events’ and public transit,” she said. “For all other sectors, public health will be retiring our protocols and issuing instead best-practice guidance.”

She noted that state health officials have not yet released their rules California as a whole will be following in terms of mask-wearing beginning June 15. But the state has indicated it will follow guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which in general allows vaccinated people to shed their masks in most settings, but requires those who are not vaccinated to continue wearing them.

Additional rules are also expected in worksites, pending a final decision on rules that were adopted last week by the board of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal-OSHA. In general, those rules will require all workers in indoor settings to continue wearing masks regardless of vaccination status, unless one person is working alone in a room or if all people in a room are fully vaccinated and not showing any symptoms of COVID-19. Physical distancing rules can be scrapped indoors and outdoors if employers make N-95 respirator masks available to non-vaccinated workers.

Cal-OSHA’s proposed rules also won’t require masks for workers in outdoor settings, except at outdoor “mega events” with 10,000 or more people.

At those events, workers would have to wear face masks regardless of their vaccination status.

According to statistics released Monday, 65% of the county’s population age 16 and over have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 54% — or roughly 4.5 million people — are fully vaccinated.

Ferrer said the county is reporting 13 more COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, along with 186 new cases.

In all, 1,245,412 cases of COVID-19 and 24,404 deaths had been recorded in L.A. County.

According to state figures, there were 243 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 in the county as of Tuesday, up from 232 on Monday, with 40 people in intensive care, up from 37 a day earlier.

At the state level, the California Department of Public Health announced 792 new infections and 6 fatalities, although L.A. County health officials, alone, listed more than double that number of deaths.

The state’s average positivity rate over the prior week was recorded at 0.7%, according to CDPH data.

As of Tuesday, L.A. county accounted for 34% of California’ COVID-19 infections and 39% of the state’s deaths.