More than half of California adults are at least partially vaccinated

LOS ANGELES - According to state officials, more than half of California adults have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

Current data shows 52.2% of California residents above the age of 18 are at least partially vaccinated.

Governor Gavin Newsom said California also currently has the lowest positivity rate in the nation.

Dr. Anne Rimoin, a Professor of Epidemiology for the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, said California is "moving in the right direction."

"We're moving in the right direction, but we're not at the end of the tunnel yet. Light is there, but we still have a ways to go. It's important to remember that only 29% are fully vaccinated and you don't have optimal immunity until you have both shots if you've gotten Pfizer or Moderna," said Rimoin.

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show California has higher vaccination numbers than other heavily-populated states like Texas, New York and Florida.

"While we're focusing on the really good news here in California, it's important to remember that we live here in the United States of America, where we have travel, we have open borders, we have a lot of movement in our population and we have a lot of states that are trending in the wrong direction so it's not time to be letting our guard down," said Rimoin.

Rimoin said she believes 70 to 80% of the population vaccinated would make herd immunity more likely, but it's difficult to have an exact number.

FOX 11 VACCINE FINDER

"It's really difficult to know what that magical number of herd immunity is actually going to be because we still have these contagious variants. It's very likely we're going to need boosters and we don't know how long the durability of the immune response is going to be," she said.

Rimoin said the focus needs to continue to be getting more people vaccinated.

"We need to keep getting vaccines in arms because that's how we're going to get in front of this virus instead of constantly chasing behind it. The big thing we can all do is get vaccinated. The reality of it is until the whole world has the vaccine, until the world is vaccinated, we're going to be continuously combating this virus," said Rimoin.

Across the nation, 48.3% of adults have received at least one shot.

Get your top stories delivered daily! Sign up for FOX 11’s Fast 5 newsletter. And, get breaking news alerts in the FOX 11 News app. Download for iOS or Android.