Standing in a warehouse being leased by the state to store COVID-19 relief supplies, Governor Newsom said the state is now moving from a reactive and crisis mindset to one of living with the virus.
"We have put together a plan that we coined as the SMARTER plan because we are smarter two years later," said Newsom. SMARTER is an acronym for Shots, Masks, Awareness, Readiness, Testing, Education, and Rx (prescription).
Newsom says this announcement matters because peoples are desperate to get back to a semblance of normalcy. "But they also need to know that we have their back, we're going to keep them safe, and we're going to stay on top of this. That we're not walking away from this pandemic and this disease, we're not walking away from the virus because the virus continues to change and mutate," Newsom said.
Newsom added that we are now more adaptable and capable of understanding COVID-19 and says he recognizes that we don't know what the future holds in terms of COVID-19. "But we have never been more prepared for that future, and so it's in that spirit of optimism that we now move into a new phase of addressing the challenges and realities of this disease," said Newsom.
He says the state will continue to adjust its approach as the virus changes in the future and said that no other state is better prepared for those changes than California.
