Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the state has set aside 40 percent of vaccine doses for its most impacted communities and established a vaccine equity metric to increase vaccinations in those communities. The state aims to deliver a minimum of 2 million vaccine doses to these communities, in an effort to move counties through tiers safer and more efficiently.

Governor Newsom made the following statement:

“With more vaccines online and administered, California is now in a position to take steps toward ending this pandemic by keeping our guard up and by vaccinating those Californians most at risk and most exposed. Vaccinating our most impacted communities, across our state, is the right thing to do and the fastest way to end this pandemic.”

California will continue to enforce masking, testing, contact tracing, quarantines and isolation. The state’s approach recognizes the disproportionate impact of the pandemic across counties, noting 40 percent of COVID cases and deaths have occurred in the lowest quartile of the Healthy Places Index, which provides overall scores and data that predict life expectancy and compares community conditions that shape health across the state.

For more information on California’s vaccine equity metric, read Newsom’s full press release here.