California COVID-19 state of emergency to end in February, Gov. Newsom says

California’s COVID-19 state of emergency will be terminated at the end of February, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration announced on Monday. Newsom administration officials said Monday’s announcement was meant to give state and local government and businesses across California time to prepare. “Throughout the pandemic, we’ve been guided by the science and data – moving quickly and strategically to save lives. The State of Emergency was an effective and necessary tool that we utilized to protect our state, and we wouldn’t have gotten to this point without it,” Newsom said in a statement. “With the operational preparedness that we’ve built up and the measures that we’ll continue to employ moving forward, California is ready to phase out this tool.”(Video above: Better COVID-related outcomes when older adults get flu shot, study shows.)The governor declared the pandemic-related state of emergency on March 4, 2020. The emergency was related to 596 rules set in 74 executive orders. Newsom administration officials said about 5% of those emergency-related rules were in effect as of Monday and are set to expire at the end of February. Newsom’s administration will ask the Legislature to codify some of the flexibility provided by the last few rules in effect as a result of the state of emergency, including rules that allow nurses to dispense COVID-19 therapeutics such as Paxlovid, and provisions to make sure lab workers continue to have the ability to solely process COVID-19 tests. Newsom’s administration officials said they plan to work with the Legislature as quickly as possible to try to make sure those rules are put into state law by the time the emergency ends on Feb. 28.