By Eli Walsh. Bay City News.
The city of Berkeley will eliminate its COVID-19 vaccination requirement for city employees on March 1, aligning with the end of the state's pandemic emergency declaration.
Existing City of Berkeley employees have been required to show proof of vaccination since late 2021 unless they have a valid exemption, while all new employees must report their vaccination status as a condition of employment.
That will change next week, city Public Health Division officials said Tuesday, while masking requirements inside city buildings and vehicles will also be relaxed.
Berkeley is one of three cities in the state, along with Long Beach and Pasadena, that operate as an independent public health jurisdiction.
The city handles its own public health matters independently of the Alameda County Department of Public Health, but the two have generally been aligned during the pandemic.
In an overview report to the Berkeley City Council on the city’s response to the pandemic, health officer Dr. Lisa Hernandez said local public health policies will shift from an emergency response to COVID to preventing the worst outcomes of the virus, primarily through vaccines and antiviral medications.
“As we move forward in the coming months and years, we will continue to shift our response to prevention and continue to integrate many of the activities we were doing in the COVID response unit into public health programs,” Hernandez said.
The city has already aligned itself with state public health policy on other matters, including when and where face coverings are required or simply recommended.
As of February 28, masks are still required regardless of vaccination status in health care and long-term care facilities.
They are also required at homeless and emergency shelters, and at jails and prisons if the county in which the facility is located has a medium or high level of COVID spread, as determined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
As of Feb. 16, all 11 counties in the Bay Area have low community levels of COVID, according to CDC data.
Hernandez and Director of Health, Housing and Community Services Dr. Lisa Warhuus detailed that the city is much better equipped now to handle the virus in the future than at any other point in the pandemic.
Berkeley's average annual case rate per 100,000 residents has increased in each of the past three years, peaking at 20.5 cases in 2022.
However, the number of COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths has declined in each of the past three years.
Hernandez said the rise in cases is partly due to the end of restrictions since the beginning of the pandemic, as well as increasingly contagious variants.
He also credited the widespread availability of vaccines and therapeutic drugs as a catalyst for easing the “severe impacts” of the virus.
According to Hernandez, the city has the highest vaccination and booster rates in the Bay Area at 94 percent and 92 percent, respectively.
About 42 percent of Berkeley residents have also received the bivalent booster shot, which targets two strains of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
All three vaccination rates also exceed state figures, Hernandez said.
“Our community has been very receptive to science and has been a strong partner with us as we navigate this pandemic,” she said Tuesday.
COVID virus levels in Berkeley wastewater are currently below their December peak but remain relatively elevated compared to last spring, according to city data.
Overall, the city has confirmed 22,585 COVID cases since the pandemic began, and the current reported citywide test positivity rate is just under 7 percent.
Both are undercounts, Hernandez explained, as the city does not track or report results from at-home COVID tests.
The virus has also killed 74 residents, according to the city.
“I am confident that this very difficult part of our history has better prepared us to respond to emergencies in the future,” said Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin.
“It’s obviously changed the way we live, it’s changed the way we work and there’s really no going back,” he said. “It’s a question of how we move forward.”
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