Newsom threatens California counties that defy coronavirus rules as cases spike
San Francisco Chronicle, by Alexei Koseff June 24, 2020
Gov. Gavin Newsom at a news conference in Sacramento on June 5. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom could withhold financial relief from local governments in the upcoming state budget if they do not follow guidelines that he says are necessary to tamp down the spike in coronavirus cases in California.
The budget deal with legislative leaders announced this week ties $750 million in funding to replace lost tax revenue for county services, as well as $1.3 billion for counties and $500 million for cities from the federal bailout package, to local governments’ compliance with the stay-at-home order and other state requirements on the coronavirus response.
Newsom, through his Department of Finance, could order state officials not to send local governments their portion of the money if they do not certify they are following the rules, which include a new mandate for Californians to wear masks nearly everywhere outside the home.
At a news conference Wednesday, the governor said that authority would give him leverage over those who “simply thumb their nose” at state guidelines. He did not specify how cities and counties would be expected to prove their compliance, though he added that he was trying to encourage good behavior rather than punish bad behavior.
“We give an enormous amount of power, control and authority to local government, but what we’re now looking for is accountability,” Newsom said.
Since the state rolled out its requirement for face coverings last week, county sheriffs and local police chiefs from Orange County to Sacramento have announced that they do not plan to enforce the order. The mayor of Nevada City, in Nevada County, encouraged residents to defy the mandate to “prevent all of us from slipping down the nasty slope of tyranny.”
Newsom, who has previously used state regulatory agencies to pressure businesses and local governments that defied his lockdown measures, said Wednesday that the “power of the purse” would give him another tool.
“If counties that have submitted that they need more state money to address this pandemic but are unwilling to enforce the rules and laws related to mitigate that pandemic, it seems not only counterintuitive that you would continue to provide those resources, but actually harmful to the broader effort,” he said.
California reported a record 7,149 new cases of the coronavirus Tuesday, Newsom said, which he attributed not only to an increase in testing but also a rising rate of positive tests. The state has recorded more than 12,000 cases in the past two days.
Hospitalizations of coronavirus patients have grown by 29% over the past two weeks, to 4,095, though the governor noted that is only a fraction of the state’s capacity.
Newsom blamed the spread on more Californians venturing out of their homes to visit family and friends, which he suggested was threatening the ability of the state to continue reopening its economy.
“Many of us, understandably, developed a little cabin fever. Some, I would argue, have developed a little amnesia. Others have just, frankly, taken down their guard,” he said. “It is our behaviors that are leading to these numbers, and we are putting people’s lives at risk.”
Earlier this week, Newsom acknowledged that he might have to shut down businesses again if the state loses control of its coronavirus outbreak. He released a video with former governors Jerry Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis and Pete Wilson encouraging the public to wear masks.
On Wednesday, Newsom pleaded with the public to continue washing their hands, wearing face coverings and avoiding large crowds and intimate gatherings.
“Consider others in your life and strangers. Love thy neighbors like yourself,” he said. “If you cannot practice physical distancing, then are you practicing love?”
Californians must now wear face coverings in public spaces, no matter the county you live in.
Gov. Gavin Newsom now says face coverings are mandatory in the state of California.Patch, by Renee Schiavone, June 18, 2020
CALIFORNIA — The debate at the county level about whether face coverings should be mandatory or not appears to be over for now, as California officials announced Thursday that the masks are now required in all public places. The requirement is effective immediately.
Click to view the 18 June 2020 CA Guidance order requiring Face Coverings
“Californians are now required to wear face coverings in public spaces – particularly indoors or when physical distancing is not possible,” the governor’s office said in a tweet.
The state’s health and human services agency said cloth face coverings “help reduce the spread of coronavirus especially when combined with physical distancing and frequent hand washing.”
There are some exemptions, including for those under 2 years old, those who need to communicate via sign language and those seated at a restaurant.
The state’s 58 counties had previously been allowed to make the decision on face covering requirements locally. Orange County had been in the headlines most recently, downgrading their requirement to a “recommendation.” Other counties in the Bay Area have had a face covering mandate in place for months.
The state’s 58 counties had previously been allowed to make the decision on face covering requirements locally. Orange County had been in the headlines most recently, downgrading their requirement to a “recommendation.” Other counties in the Bay Area have had a face covering mandate in place for months. [Editor: CORRECTION – Solano County is the one Bay Area County that does NOT have a mandatory face covering order. – R.S.]
NEW: Californians are now required to wear face coverings in public spaces – particularly indoors or when physical distancing is not possible. ????
— Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) June 18, 2020
The state listed certain “high risk” situations where the coverings are mandatory:
Inside of, or in line to enter, any indoor public space;
Obtaining services from the healthcare sector in settings including, but not limited to, a hospital, pharmacy, medical clinic, laboratory, physician or dental office, veterinary clinic, or blood bank;
Waiting for or riding on public transportation or paratransit or while in a taxi, private car service, or ride-sharing vehicle;
Engaged in work, whether at the workplace or performing work off-site, when:
Interacting in-person with any member of the public;
Working in any space visited by members of the public, regardless of whether anyone from the public is present at the time;
Working in any space where food is prepared or packaged for sale or distribution to others;
Working in or walking through common areas, such as hallways, stairways, elevators, and parking facilities;
In any room or enclosed area where other people (except for members of the person’s own household or residence) are present when unable to physically distance.
Driving or operating any public transportation or paratransit vehicle, taxi, or private car service or ride-sharing vehicle when passengers are present. When no passengers are present, face coverings are strongly recommended.
While outdoors in public spaces when maintaining a physical distance of six feet from persons who are not members of the same household or residence is not feasible.
The following individuals are exempt from wearing a face covering, according to the state:
Children aged two and under;
Persons with a medical, mental health, or developmental disability that prevents wearing a face covering;
Persons who are hearing impaired, or communicating with a person who is hearing impaired, where the ability to see the mouth is essential for communication;
Persons for whom wearing a face covering would create a risk to the person related to their work, as determined by local, state, or federal regulators or workplace safety guidelines.
Persons who are obtaining a service involving the nose or face for which temporary removal of the face covering is necessary to perform the service;
Persons who are seated at a restaurant or other establishment that offers food or beverage service, while they are eating or drinking, provided that they are able to maintain a distance of at least six feet away from persons who are not members of the same household or residence;
Persons who are engaged in outdoor work or recreation such as swimming, walking, hiking, bicycling, or running, when alone or with household members, and when they are able to maintain a distance of at least six feet from others;
Persons who are incarcerated. Prisons and jails, as part of their mitigation plans, will have specific guidance on the wearing of face coverings of masks for both inmates and staff.
Most of the new businesses are part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s methodical four-step process for reopening.
ABC7 Bay Area News, June 5, 2020
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California will allow schools, day camps, bars, gyms, campgrounds and professional sports to begin reopening with modifications starting next Friday.
The state will release guidance later Friday for counties to follow to reopen a broad range of businesses that have been closed since mid-March because of concerns about spreading the coronavirus, said Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services agency.
The rules on schools and day camps will apply statewide. But only counties that have met certain thresholds on the number of cases, testing and preparedness will be allowed to start reopening the other sectors. Almost all of the state’s 58 counties have met those metrics. The state’s guidance will also include rules on hotels, casinos, museums, zoos and aquariums and the resumption of music, film and television production.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has been moving the state through a methodical four-step process for reopening. Most of the new businesses are part of “Phase 3.” Nail salons will not be included in the list, Ghaly said.
When students return to classrooms, things could look vastly different. In addition to requirements for physical distancing, the state plans to supply every school and childcare center with no-touch thermometers, hand sanitizer, face shields for every teacher, cloth face coverings for staff and students and tight-fitting N-95 masks for health care professionals in schools.
California has already allowed most counties to reopen restaurants, hair salons, churches, and retail stores with modifications.
Guidelines on how to reopen schools have been highly anticipated. The state cannot order schools to close, but it can offer guidelines for districts to follow around reopening. They have been closed since mid-March, when Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order, and developed distance-learning plans on the fly.
The idea of classes resuming in the fall is a relief for both teachers and parents, and raises new concerns about safety. Districts are also facing the prospects of billions of dollars in state budget cuts as the state scrambles to plug a deficit brought on by the virus.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said last week that he expects a “hybrid model” of instruction at schools, balancing traditional classes and distance learning to accommodate the need for physical distancing.
Leaders in the entertainment industry, meanwhile, have been brainstorming safe ways to get back to work since film, television and commercial production in Los Angeles shut down completely on March 20.
The Directors Guild enlisted “Contagion” director Steven Soderbergh to head a committee to determine when and how productions can resume in collaboration with epidemiologists and “sister guilds,” unions and employers.
Film, television and commercial production make up a significant amount of the Los Angeles economy. According to not-for-profit film office FilmLA, nearly 17% of the local workforce is tied to the industry, which has been out of commission for over two months now.
California’s coronavirus cases and hospitalizations remain stable as the state moves toward a broader reopening. But the state is monitoring and preparing for a potential increase in cases due to broader reopening and mass protests across the state against racial injustice.
California has reported more than 122,000 coronavirus cases and more than 4,400 deaths.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause pneumonia and death.
Maria Banderas (left) answers questions from medical assistant Dolores Becerra on May 18 before getting a coronavirus test at St. John’s Well Child and Family Center in South Los Angeles, one of the LA neighborhoods hit hard by COVID-19. Al Seib/LA Times via Getty ImagesNPR KQED, by Martha Bebinger, Blake Farmer and Jackie Fortier, June 5, 2020
Mass protests against police violence across the U.S. have public health officials concerned about an accelerated spread of the coronavirus. But even before the protests began May 26, sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, several states had been recording big jumps in the number of cases.
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, registered his concern at a congressional hearing Thursday. He shook his head as a congresswoman showed him photos of throngs of people at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri over Memorial Day weekend and crowds in Florida that had assembled to watch the May 30 launch of the SpaceX Dragon crew capsule.
“We’re very concerned that our public health message isn’t resonating,” Redfield said. “We continue to try to figure out how to penetrate the message with different groups. The pictures the chairwoman showed me are great examples of serious problems.”
The U.S. is still seeing roughly 20,000 new cases a day. There’s a wide range from state to state, from one case a day, on average, last week in Hawaii all the way up to to 2,614 new cases a day in California. Specific areas in the Golden State have become hot spots, along with certain counties in every Southern state.
The northeastern states of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts — which among them accounted for a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. — are seeing a substantial slowing of new cases.
A closer look at these hard-hit areas highlights some of the common and unique challenges states face as they manage protests and begin efforts to reopen the economy amid the risks of more disease and death.
Tennessee and the Carolinas among Southern states showing jumps
In the South, the timing of new cases appears to be linked to the reopening of restaurants, barber shops and gyms, which started in most states more than a month ago. Figures tracked by NPR show the number of cases in North Carolina and South Carolina this week is up by roughly 60% from two weeks ago. In Tennessee, that increase is 75%.
Georgia and Louisiana look steadier, but they experienced some of the highest cases counts and fatalities in the region in recent weeks, at the height of the pandemic.
In Southern states that were quick to reopen, officials sometimes felt the need to explain big increases in case counts on some days. In Georgia, for example, a state health official said a big one-day increase was because of a backlog of reporting cases from a commercial lab. In Tennessee this week, a daily jump of 800 cases was blamed partially on an ongoing prison outbreak that yielded 350 new positive test results.
California case counts driven by populous Los Angeles County
In California, counties are continuing to allow businesses to reopen even as newly confirmed coronavirus cases climb. The state experienced a 40% jump in cases over the last week. Large metro areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco have gradually lifted restrictions and Californians have responded by traveling to beaches and neighboring areas, blurring the effectiveness of the varying degrees of restrictions between adjacent counties.
Los Angeles County, home to more than 10 million people, has the highest number of cases in the state. Numbers tracked by NPR show that, on average, health officials report around 1,300 new cases daily. The county has blamed slow lab results for a backlog, while acknowledging that community transmission has been ticking up, especially among communities of color.
In the Northeast, where New York City became the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic for weeks, there are still thousands of new cases every day, although the rate of increase has slowed. It’s down 41% in New Jersey over the past two weeks, down 33% in New York and down 13% in Massachusetts. But health officials caution that doesn’t mean the coronavirus is under control in these three states. New York is still seeing more than 1,000 new cases a day; over the past week, Massachusetts averaged just over 500 a day, and New Jersey had close to 800.
Ethnic disparities persist across the country
In Los Angeles, elderly people, particularly those who live in nursing homes have been disproportionately impacted. Almost half the people who have died from COVID-19 in the county were nursing home residents. County health officials were slow to test for the virus in nursing homes, and recent data reported by the health department shows that two-thirds of the Los Angeles County health care workers who died from the virus worked in nursing homes.
People of color have been disproportionately affected in California, as elsewhere: Latinos make up over half of the COVID-19 cases in California, where they are about 40% of the state’s population. In Los Angeles County, the highest COVID death rates have been among native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and black residents. Minorities have an increased risk of developing underlying health conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes, making them more likely to develop a more severe illness if infected with the virus.
In Tennessee, which has one of the nation’s fastest-growing case counts, neighborhoods that are home to large immigrant populations have emerged as persistent hot spots. Nashville’s public health department has hired specialized community outreach workers, in partnership with immigrant advocacy organizations, to conduct contact tracing and connect families with coronavirus testing.
“We knew we had to do something different, and that’s what we’re doing now,” says Leslie Waller, a city epidemiologist who oversees the project.
Waller acknowledges that many of the people at risk work in jobs that have been deemed essential or own businesses that can’t be run remotely. Public health officials also express concern that co-workers in close-knit immigrant communities often carpool to the same jobs, and some job sites have experienced large outbreaks.
But in Southern states, rising case counts have not slowed the momentum for further lifting of restrictions. On Thursday, Tennessee announced additional loosening of restrictions for community events, allowing fairs, expos and parades. Instead of limiting the number of people who can gather, the focus has shifted to ensuring everyone can maintain social distance.
“Thanks to the continued hard work of Tennesseans and business owners operating responsibly, we’re able to further reopen our state’s economy,” Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said in a written statement. “These new guidelines provide useful information so that we can enjoy the events that connect us to our neighbors and communities.”
There’s virtually no public discussion of reinstating business restrictions, so long as hospitals can handle any uptick in illness.
Northeast states take a slower, more cautious approach to reopening
Some states in the Northeast have found ways to bring down infection rates, though many of them have put much stricter rules on businesses and public spaces.
You still can’t sit down in a restaurant in New York City or anywhere in Massachusetts and New Jersey. That may be allowed in the coming weeks, but only outdoors. These states are all still in the early stages of reopening, after residents were told to stay home for almost two months and all but the most essential businesses were closed.
While most states do not have broad requirements for face coverings, rules requiring them are more common in the Northeast. In Massachusetts, some kind of face covering is required indoors and outside, if you can’t stay at least 6 feet away from other people. In New York and New Jersey, masks are required in public and while riding buses or trains. Within some states, counties have varying rules, which can cause confusion. In Los Angeles County, health officials made cloth face coverings mandatory at all times when outside your home, while San Diego County only requires masks when you are within 6 feet of another person.
Residents everywhere are chafing at the rules, but in the hardest-hit states, there’s a wider acceptance of social-distancing rules. A poll out last week found twice as many New York residents were worried about opening too quickly, compared with the number of New Yorkers who were worried about it happening too slowly. Polls in New Jersey and Massachusetts also have shown better than majority support for gradual, phased openings.
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