SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento County is moving to the less restrictive red tier of California’s coronavirus reopening plan along with nine other counties around the state.
The counties making a move from the purple tier to the red tier this time include Lake, Monterey, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Sutter, Tehama, Tulare, and Ventura counties. San Mateo County is moving from the red tier to the orange tier.
The new tier status goes into effect at midnight on Wednesday.
Alpine County, which is the only California county in the yellow tier, is at risk of moving back to the orange tier, health officials say.
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) reported Alpine County had met a more restrictive tier’s requirement for one week. Counties could backslide if their case rates and positivity rates rise higher than their current tier assignment for two weeks. Before moving counties back in the tier system, CDPH also considers if the county's projections are showing a downward trend.
It had seemed previously that San Joaquin County would also be shifting to a less restrictive tier with these updates on Tuesday. However, the Central Valley county remains in the most restrictive purple tier, along with Kings and Yuba County, which had also hoped to move to the red tier.
Health officials say there is potential for additional counties to move tiers next week. Going forward, the purple tier threshold is greater than 10 cases per 100,000 people, officials said.
Counties poised to improve their tiers next week, should their numbers remain low, include Kern, Lassen, Nevada, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, Trinity, and Yolo.
California is continuing on its accelerated reopening path following Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health officials Mar. 4 announcement of a plan to set aside 40% of all vaccine doses for the state's most vulnerable neighborhoods.
The first benchmark of the “healthy places index” was 2 million vaccinations. That threshold was reached on Mar. 12. The next goal is to hit 4 million vaccinations before the next tier update. The state said it will ease thresholds for the yellow and orange tiers when the 4 million mark is reached.
Read more from ABC10
WATCH ALSO: CDC reviewing new study that suggests 3 feet of social distancing over 6 feet for in-person classrooms
