Newsom orders new shutdown of restaurants, other indoor business in 19 California counties
San Francisco Chronicle, by Dustin Gardiner July 1, 2020
Gov. Gavin Newsom at a news conference in Sacramento on Jan. 10. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered 19 counties with surging coronavirus outbreaks to close indoor restaurants, wineries, movie theaters and other venues on Wednesday, saying California must act to keep the pandemic from spiraling out of control.
Newsom said the state has directed counties on its “watch list” — those with spiking numbers of new cases and hospitalizations — to reimpose parts of their stay-at-home orders. His directive came as the state warned that the virus could spread from family gatherings on the the Fourth of July weekend.
In the Bay Area, the list includes Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Solanocounties.
“We’ve seen increased activity where people simply aren’t able to practice social distancing,” Newsom said at a briefing.
His order requires restaurants, wineries, family entertainment centers, movie theaters, museums, zoos and cardrooms in the 19 counties to halt indoor operations for at least three weeks. The affected establishments are allowed to operate outdoors, such as restaurant patios.
Newsom also ordered the full closure of all bars and breweries in the 19 counties, both indoor and outdoor operations.
Combined, the 19 counties include nearly three-fourths of California’s population. Besides the Bay Area counties, the list includes Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, Stanislaus, Fresno, Glenn, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Merced, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties.
The governor said the state will also close parking lots at state beaches, including those in the Bay Area, for the holiday weekend.
Newsom implored Californians to practice social distancing and wear masks as they mingle and travel for the holiday. He said people must “disabuse” themselves of any notion that people have stopped dying of COVID-19, noting that the statewide death toll hit 110 on Tuesday.
“Let’s do our best to meet this moment, as we met the moment many months ago and bent the curve again the first time,” he said. “Let’s do it again.”
On Tuesday, the state recorded 7,820 new cases — its second-highest tally in a 24-hour period — and surpassed 6,000 deaths. The state reported 5,898 new cases on Wednesday.
Newsom’s administration began allowing counties in May to move ahead on reopening businesses including indoor restaurants and shopping malls if they hit benchmarks in slowing the spread of the virus and creating capacity to contain a surge.
Most of California’s 58 counties have allowed some nonessential businesses to reopen, although the pace has been slower in the Bay Area than elsewhere.
In recent days, however, some of those efforts have been reversed — several counties have closed bars again, and San Francisco, Marin, Alameda and Contra Costa counties all pulled back on plans to let gyms and hair salons reopen.
Alarming updates about the virus’ toll continue to mount: San Francisco announced Tuesday that the city has seen a 49% spike in hospitalizations over the last week as patients from San Quentin State Prison and hard-hit rural Imperial County were transferred to city hospitals.
Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
[Significant quote: “A Newsom administration official confirmed that the state wants to see counties fill at least 80% of testing slots at each location. And if testing drops below 50% for a few days or longer, counties are warned, the sites could be transferred elsewhere.”]
As coronavirus cases surge, California pauses multimillion-dollar testing expansion
Los Angeles Times, by Angela Hart, Rachel Bluth, July 1, 2020
Carson Mayor Albert Robles self-tests for COVID-19 at a new drive-up site outside the Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald Community Center. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
SACRAMENTO — In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a multimillion-dollar state initiative to bring COVID-19 testing to the people and places with the least access: rural towns and disadvantaged inner-city neighborhoods.
California is now halting its expansion, citing costs, even as the state is getting walloped by record-setting spikes in new infections and double-digit increases in hospitalizations.
The state will no longer fund new testing sites, despite pleas from counties for additional assistance — and it has closed some locations and moved them elsewhere. It also has threatened to pull testing out of underutilized sites, according to nearly two dozen interviews with county public health officials.
While it’s early in the process, some winners and losers have emerged: El Dorado County, east of Sacramento, lost its testing site in the town of Shingle Springs in June because it couldn’t fill enough appointment slots, while Fresno County gained a site that had been pulled from elsewhere, said its health officer, Dr. Rais Vohra.
Yet San Mateo County has asked state officials three times for a second state-funded venue to address testing gaps in Black and farmworker neighborhoods but has been “told no, repeatedly,” said Justin Mates, deputy county manager. So the county transformed its sole state site into a roving testing unit.
“Equity is certainly a concern for us,” Mates said. “We really need help with testing access if we’re going to reach our Latino residents and places like East Palo Alto,” a diverse city whose population is mainly Latino, African American and Asian/Pacific Islander.
California has committed up to $132 million in contracts with two private COVID-19 testing companies, Verily Life Sciences and OptumServe, to offer free coronavirus tests at more than 100 sites that the Newsom administration has identified as “testing deserts.” The expansion has dramatically increased the state’s overall testing numbers, which swelled from 16,000 tests per day in April to 105,000 on Monday.
Testing is also available at county-funded locations, private pharmacies, hospitals and community clinics.
State Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly confirmed that California is pulling sites out of counties that aren’t generating high enough numbers and cutting off funding for new locations.
“With every asset and resource — especially when it’s scarce — you want it to go to places where it’s most needed,” Ghaly said. “It wouldn’t be prudent or wise to maintain spending in a place where resources aren’t being used.”
Newsom has voiced concern about the testing price tag, given “unprecedented” budget shortfalls. “There is a big cost associated with testing,” he said in late June.
A Newsom administration official confirmed that the state wants to see counties fill at least 80% of testing slots at each location. And if testing drops below 50% for a few days or longer, counties are warned, the sites could be transferred elsewhere.
Counties argue that there’s a public health benefit to keeping underperforming locations open — simply to ensure that testing is available to rural and disenfranchised communities. Across the state, counties are fighting to save state-funded sites even as they are being overwhelmed by increased numbers of COVID-19 cases, linked largely to social gatherings.
“It’s how we are able to quickly identify where the virus is and if there are hot spots,” said Dr. Olivia Kasirye, health officer for Sacramento County, where holiday celebrations and booze-fueled gatherings among family and friends are sending infection rates soaring.
Contra Costa County saw its testing numbers drop in June and was at risk of losing a state-funded site until it proved it could keep appointments near 80% of capacity, said its health officer, Dr. Chris Farnitano.
Riverside County was warned June 16 that a state-funded site north of Temecula would be “moved to another county” if it didn’t get its testing above 50%, according to an email from the state’s testing task force. The state told Mendocino County it could lose its state-funded site, the only free testing available within a two-hour drive for some rural residents, if it didn’t push numbers up.
Alameda County grew so frustrated with state requirements that it undertook a testing expansion of its own.
“We realized we couldn’t depend on the state, especially to reach our vulnerable communities,” said Dr. Jocelyn Freeman-Garrick, an emergency room physician at Highland Hospital in Oakland, who is leading the county’s testing task force.
El Dorado County, which lost its site, so far has maintained a relatively low count of COVID-19 cases. It can’t afford to replace the site but will “make do,” said county spokesperson Carla Hass.
Ghaly said the state is working with counties in danger of losing sites to give them a chance to fill testing slots. State officials declined to say how many counties have lost sites, but as new infections have soared, testing numbers are starting to pick back up. The list of counties at risk of losing a site has dwindled from around a dozen in early June to a few last week.
Public health experts say focusing so intently on testing numbers, and not on adequate testing in Black and Latino neighborhoods, risks abandoning communities that already face immense barriers to healthcare.
“If you ignore these communities, then we’ll keep seeing the kinds of surges that we’re seeing now,” said Dr. Tony Iton, formerly the top health official for Alameda County and now a senior vice president of the California Endowment, which is working with counties to expand testing in underserved neighborhoods.
Entrenched socioeconomic barriers also make it difficult to get, and keep, testing numbers up. For instance, people who want to be tested at state sites often need Internet access and an email address. Most sites are drive-through, requiring access to a vehicle.
Many low-income people can’t meet those requirements, while undocumented immigrants fear that providing personal information to obtain a test could expose them to immigration officials, said Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, a former health officer of Santa Clara County who is leading its testing program.
“We can have all the tests we want, but if people are afraid to come and get tested, it’s not going to be of any benefit,” he said.
State contracts that fund the testing sites were extended in June but are set to expire Aug. 31, and administration officials have not told counties whether the state will continue funding them after that, said Mimi Hall, president of the County Health Executives Assn. of California and director of public health for Santa Cruz County.
Counties can’t afford to keep the sites running, said Hall, who is on the state’s testing task force.
“It’s hard to plan when we don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep them,” Hall said.
First below is an excerpt from the CA Dept. of Public Health’s Watch List, detailing recent increasing hospitalizations in Solano County and “key action steps” that Solano is taking in coordination with the State.
Below that is a detail from the State’s County Data Chart, showing Solano County among those counties with increasing hospitalization rate of >10%. On June 29, Solano shows a 23% increase in 3-day avg COVID+ hospitalized patients.
Solano County (has variance) is increasing hospitalization. Drivers include a large outbreak among farm workers in the vineyards in Sonoma and Napa who are residing in Solano, as well as an ongoing surge in cases related to family gatherings and other social gatherings on the weekends. The farm worker cases total many dozens over the past one to two weeks, and the close-contact cases appear to have begun with weekend activities in early May and are continuing to the present. The large number of such cases overall is resulting in an increase in hospitalized cases. These cases are not at present resulting in a strain on the hospitals or in ICU admissions but the county is monitoring this closely. County reports that hospitals in their jurisdiction have multiple levels of surge capacity for hospitalizations and for ICU admissions, if these become necessary. Key action steps include: working with the neighboring counties and with the vineyard management companies to implement social distancing measures; 2) educating the workers themselves (using Spanish interpreters) on social distancing measures; 3) providing appropriate cautionary messages through social media and the press about the risks of gatherings, not social distancing and not using personal protection measures.
Holiday blues: 19 counties now on watch list for more COVID-19 restrictions
CalMatters, by Lauren Hepler, June 29, 2020
Frederique Van Niekerk, from left, and her mother Bernadette Van Niekerk wear masks while waiting in line to enter the clothing store Forever 21 while shopping in Walnut Creek on June 18, 2020. Photo by Jose Carlos Fajardo, Bay Area News Group
With the July 4 holiday weekend only days away, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday that 19 counties home to 72% of the state’s population are now on a “watch list” for additional COVID-19 restrictions.
Four new counties — Solano, Merced, Glenn and Orange — were added Monday to the list of hard-hit locales where state health officials are monitoring infection data, providing technical assistance and weighing new measures to slow the spread of the virus.
Bars were already ordered to shut down in Los Angeles and six other counties on Sunday as businesses hit hard by the virus looked to the busy summer holiday to recoup some losses. Even after the closures, local health officials warned on Monday of “alarming” increases in the number of new COVID-19 cases in L.A., and County Supervisor Janice Hahn announced on Twitter that officials plan to close beaches for the holiday from July 3-6.
The question now is if and when the governor may ask other counties on the list to “toggle back” reopening plans, though exactly what that might entail remains unclear.
“We are considering a number of other things to advance,” Newsom said, “and we will be making those public as conditions change.”
In the most severe case in Imperial County, Newsom said the state is prepared to intervene should county supervisors refuse to revert to a strict stay-at-home order. As of late last week, the county had the state’s highest COVID-19 hospitalization rate.
“The state of California will assert itself and make sure that happens,” Newsom said. “We believe they need to move back into that stay-at-home posture.”
The growing watch list and the governor’s repeated emphasis on the importance of a “dimmer switch” to scale back reopening plans if necessary highlights ongoing tension over state and local control that has already boiled over in some parts of the state. In Orange County, health officer Nichole Quick was one of at least five such officials in California to retire or resign this spring, in her case amid threats and personal information leaks.
Besides Los Angeles, the other counties already ordered to shut down bars were Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Kings, San Joaquin and Tulare. Those on the watch list that have not yet been ordered to take additional precautions are Contra Costa, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and Ventura.
On Monday, Newsom and California Health & Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly stressed that the state is basing decisions about where to intervene on specific health data. Of particular concern are local “positivity rates,” or the percentage of COVID-19 tests coming back positive. That number climbed to 5.9% statewide in the last week, Newsom said, compared to 4.4% in early June when the state began to allow gradual reopenings.
Statewide testing capacity has increased in the meantime, he said, to a record of nearly 106,000 tests on Sunday. But in areas like Imperial County, where the positivity rate hit 23%, the increased caseload can lead to frantic conditions on the ground.
“We had to move 500 patients out of their hospital system into surrounding county systems,” Newsom said of “extraordinary rates” in the 190,000-person county along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The scramble in Imperial County highlights the uneven fallout from the virus. Hospitalization rates are climbing fastest in rural Imperial, Kings and Stanislaus counties. Some more affluent and urbanized regions, including San Francisco and Marin counties where infection and hospitalization rates have so far remained lower, have delayed components of reopening plans.
When it comes to the economic toll of the virus, California has already shed twice as many jobs during the first two months of the COVID-19 crisis — about 2.6 million — as it did during 31 months of the Great Recession a decade ago, according to an analysis released last week by the California Budget & Policy Center. Job losses are most concentrated in low-paying service fields, and Black women, Latina women and Asian men saw the sharpest employment declines from February to May this year, by 23%, 22% and 18%, respectively, the report found.
This week’s bar closures are likely to add pressure to existing questions about whether state or federal lawmakers will extend enhanced unemployment benefits, small business loans or other safety-net programs strained by the pandemic. It’s a dynamic that has already upended the state’s annual budget cycle, with legislators so far favoring cuts likely to most impact a dwindling number of middle-class families to address a sudden $54 billion deficit.
“The question for state policymakers as the COVID-19 recession drags on is, how will they find the money needed to avoid cuts to programs and services that Californians will continue to need in the months and years to come?” Alissa Anderson, senior policy analyst with the California Budget & Policy Center, wrote in the recent report.
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