California transitions from pandemic to ‘endemic,’ utilizes new plan to help

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s seven-point SMARTER plan will be used for future handling of COVID-19 surges and variants. Graphic by HARRY LADA, Art Director

The name of one volunteer from the Action OC grassroots group has been changed to “Mary,” as she asked to remain anonymous to protect herself from retaliation by supporters of COVID-19 vaccination.

California will be following the SMARTER plan, a seven-point plan that will help the state continue to combat COVID-19 as it begins shifting from a pandemic to an “endemic,” since the state is no longer in a state of emergency.

The plan was introduced by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Dr. Mark Ghaly, the secretary of the California Health & Human Services Agency, at a Feb. 17 press conference — just a day after California lifted its statewide mask mandate for vaccinated individuals in indoor public areas.

SMARTER stands for shots, masks, awareness, readiness, testing, education and Rx. Aside from continuing to emphasize vaccinations, booster shots and masks, the plan seeks to keep testing accessible and schools open, make treatments more available and ensure the state has the resources and supplies to address future surges and variants.

"One of the fundamental lessons we've come to understand is that (COVID-19) has evolved, and our understanding has to evolve in terms of how we approach it with the kind of flexibility that is required," Newsom said at the conference. "We have to prepare for that uncertainty; we have to communicate that uncertainty and this plan is put forth with that in mind."

According to Jerika Lam, an associate professor in the School of Pharmacy and Chapman’s viral infection specialist, COVID-19 in California is entering an endemic phase, meaning the virus is now living within communities and requires a proactive approach to continue combatting it instead of an emergency approach. Lam used the analogy of the West Nile virus, which is mainly transmitted through mosquitoes.

Volunteers from the Action OC grassroots group held a memorial Feb. 20 in tribute of some of the individuals who have died or been injured after experiencing adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine. Photo courtesy of Renee Elefante

“Instead of doing a whole emergency call statewide, we have preventive measures because we know the vector is the mosquito that transmits the virus from one person to another,” Lam said. “We have to contain mosquitoes, and so we understand that they breed in stagnant, still waters, so we have to empty the pools or the buckets in the garden. If there’s still water, that’s a reservoir for them to lay eggs and hatch.”

The SMARTER plan also includes information on the goals that the state has set for each category. Currently, California hopes to keep a supply of 75 million masks with good filtration, engage with over 150 community-based organizations and administer over 500,000 tests and 200,000 vaccinations daily. 

The state also seeks to increase the number of vaccination sites at schools by 25% and continue conducting respiratory surveillance, wastewater surveillance and genome sequencing.

Overall, Lam said she believes the SMARTER plan is a good strategy and may prove worthwhile, but she does not know if it is a “great” plan, since information confirming the plan’s efficacy would not be gathered until next year.

“I think there are many questions that need to be answered,” Lam said. “How would this roll out to communities of color — marginalized communities that have limited resources? How are they going to implement the seven-point plan (in) communities like Beverly Hills (or) Irvine, which are more affluent (and) have more resources?”

Kelly, a volunteer for the Action OC grassroots group who did not want to disclose her last name for fear of retribution from supporters of the vaccine, is against Newsom’s approach to masking and vaccination protocols.

“I think that (Newsom) has to kind of change his tune, because there’s going to be a group of people that are never going to get this vaccine, and he’s fighting a losing battle,” Kelly said. “I think (Newsom) is corrupt, and there’s nothing that he’s going to do that’s going to get all of us to comply. You can’t comply your way out of tyranny; there’s going to be nothing that he can do that’s going to change people’s minds.” 

Kelly was one of the volunteers working at a Feb. 20 memorial held for a few hours in the Plaza Park portion of the Orange Circle. According to Kelly, the memorial represented the deaths and injuries of upwards of 70,000 individuals after experiencing a serious, adverse reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine — a statistic that has been disproven by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is co-managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Of the over 550 million vaccine doses that have been administered between December 2020 and February 2022, VAERS received over 12,000 preliminary reports of death within this timeframe, which equates to less than 1%.

Examples of adverse reactions include swelling in areas where the vaccine had not been administered, like armpits, and a severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Federal law requires healthcare providers to report these reactions to VAERS; though the CDC emphasizes these side effects are uncommon — even among adolescents..

“Health care providers, parents, and adolescents should be advised that local and systemic reactions are expected among adolescents after a homologous Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccination and that serious adverse events are rare,” the CDC noted in the latest weekly report of COVID-19 booster vaccine morbidity and mortality.

Kelly and other volunteers encouraged visitors to walk through the memorial, where the individuals’ names, death or injection date, photos, ages and a brief recap of their story were listed on laminated posters. The volunteers also passed out brochures to visitors, which provided links to articles and studies examining the effectiveness of masks and side effects like mouth sores and eye infections. 

Provided brochures also pointed out instances in which government officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Newsom, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi urged citizens to wear masks but were caught in public not wearing them.

Kelly told The Panther one story that stuck out to her was that of Maddie De Garay, a 13-year-old girl who had volunteered for the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine trial when she was 12 and experienced symptoms like severe abdominal and chest pains as well as an inability to digest food. De Garay currently uses a wheelchair and attributes the vaccine as the cause of her onslaught of medical issues, though this claim has caused contention among medical professionals. 

“I just feel really bad for a child like (De Garay), who signed up thinking that she was going to advance science,” Kelly said. “Some of (the science), she probably really believed in, and her parents believed in it, (too). And here she is, now permanently injured and damaged from this vaccine.”

According to Kelly, the stories of individuals who experienced adverse reactions to the vaccination that were on display at the memorial were compiled off of Facebook, Instagram and Telegram, the last of which is a messaging platform. On these platforms, family members of these individuals posted to share their experiences with life after getting vaccinated. Stories of athletes and people working in the entertainment industry were also featured at the event.

This is not the first time Action OC has held a memorial in the Southern California region; other locations include San Diego and Orange County beaches and schools. 

“We hold the signs up so the parents can see it as they drive in and out, as (they) drive into school,” said Mary, another member of Action OC who requested anonymity for fear of retribution from supporters of the vaccine.

The member also said the group does these memorials on their own time and pays for all of the laminated posters out of their own pockets, since they don’t receive funding.

Lam said that although Kelly and Mary’s concerns are valid, experiencing adverse reactions from receiving the COVID-19 vaccines is “very rare.” Lam also said that the individuals who have adverse reactions may have underlying health conditions or risk factors that caused them to react negatively. Lam also noted that there is currently no vaccine that doesn’t cause adverse reactions.

“It is much safer to get vaccinated against this novel virus and prevent the risk of having long-term complications that could affect our physical well-being and quality of health,” Lam said. “Billions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally, and the vast majority of people have been protected from this vicious and lethal virus. We are in a much safer place now because of the vaccines than we were two years ago.”