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As California goes …

California dreaming: what the state's new employment law signals for  insurance - Accenture Insurance Blog

This is some good news, actually, and not just for those of us who live here. It’s a model for what might work nationally once we have rational leadership in place:

Walk down memory lane:

California early to act in March, preventing surge of cases that affected many others

Over April/May, CA cases were low

But California had an awful summer surge, especially in SoCal

Cases peaked in late July: over 12,000 cases, 150 deaths / day

But in August, strong leadership from @CHHSAgency Health Secretary Mark Ghaly and @GavinNewsom

What did they do? Huge increases in testing including bringing new capacity online

Created highly customized approach on a county by county level — micro targeting policies

OK — so did it actually work?

Data:

Over past 6 weeks (since labor day), USA outside of California:

cases up 68%,
hospitalizations up 22%
% of tests positives: 5.6% –> 6.6%

California

Cases down 9%
Hospitalizations down 26%
% of test positive 3.5% –> 2.4%

California a big state (40 Million folks)

So this is not about small numbers or a fluke

Its concerted effort to increase testing (up 32% since Labor Day) and smart, county-level policies

California bucking the national trend

Here’s their approach:

https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy/

And here’s county level guidance

https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/CDPH%20Document%20Library/COVID-19/Dimmer-Framework-September_2020.pdf

What do I like here?

Instead of approaching lockdowns as light switch (on or off), CA approach is that of a dimmer switch

And it looks like its working

Obviously we don’t know if it will last but so far, so good

But here’s the bottom line

When so many states struggling

micro-targeting, more testing are smart policies that can avoid big surges

Golden State leading the way

We don’t have to look abroad to see this success story

And we can learn to keep COVID under control

Fin

Originally tweeted by Ashish K. Jha (@ashishkjha) on October 19, 2020.

Published inUncategorized