COVID updates: Hawaii is only state to not announce plans to lift mask mandates

Gov. Gavin Newsom and California health officials have released a plan to deal with COVID-19 once it becomes an endemic.

The plan, dubbed "SMARTER," will focus on seven areas: shots, masks, awareness, readiness, testing, education and medicine.

Officials said that clear "on and off ramps” for future restrictions, such as mask mandates, will be created specifically for variants.

California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said case rates could determine future restrictions if the state faces a more deadly variant in the future, while hospital capacity could be the primary indicator if California faces a less virulent variant similar to omicron.

The state will publish a one- to two-page summary of the state’s current recommendations on COVID-19 in the next couple of days, according to Ghaly.

-ABC News' Matt Fuhrman

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday will announce the state's "endemic" COVID-19 plan -- a vague but flexible approach that will change based off the characteristics of new variants.

State officials said clear "on and off ramps” for future restrictions will be created for specific variants.

California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said case rates could be determinative for future restrictions if there's a deadly variant, while hospital capacity could be the primary indicator if California faces a less virulent variant, similar to omicron. 

The SMARTER plan focuses on seven areas: S – Shots; M - Masks “on and off ramps that are tailored for each unique virus strain"; A – Awareness; R – Readiness; T – Testing; E – Education; and R - Rx (Treatment).

State officials are expected to publish a one to two-page SMARTER summary of the state’s current recommendations on COVID-19 in the next few days. The document will be consistently updated so Californians can reference what the state's current recommendations are.

-ABC News' Matthew Fuhrman

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Thursday the state's mask mandate is ending, effective immediately, ABC affiliate KOAT reported.

Private businesses and school districts can set their own mask rules, KOAT said.

In January, omicron sent U.S. cases surging to an unprecedented high, with over 807,000 daily COVID-19 cases at the nation's peak. Exactly one month later, cases have plummeted to an average of 134,000 new cases per day, according to federal data.

Nearly every state is reporting declining case rates, but nearly 97% of U.S. counties are still reporting high transmission. Also, experts continue to caution that many Americans are taking at-home tests and not submitting their results, so case totals may be higher than reported.

Hospitalizations are also continuing to drop, according to federal data. The U.S. has 71,000 patients with COVID-19 currently in hospitals; during the mid-January peak, there were 160,000 hospitalized patients.

Fatalities -- a lagging indicator -- are slowly starting to fall. The U.S. is now averaging 2,100 COVID-19-related deaths each day, down by nearly 10% in the last week, according to federal data.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos