Winter is over; the pandemic is not
Californians have countless reasons for resuming the routines we relinquished over a year ago: Spring is here, so are the vaccines, and we just marked a year of pandemicinduced deprivation as well as the end of the worst wave of the contagion. Our leaders, too, are tired of the political consequences of telling us what not to do, chief among them Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is fending off a recall attempt fueled by frustration with the old abnormal.
Unfortunately, the virus doesn’t care about the calendar or the politics, and nearly threequarters of the state’s population has yet to receive a single dose of a vaccine. Unless state and local officials encourage more caution soon, we face a grave risk of following other states and countries that are already seeing another preventable surge of infections, illness and death just months away from widespread inoculation.
Thanks to the governor’s latest loosening of his own reopening rules as well as dramatic reductions in viral transmission since the January peak, the Bay Area and the rest of California have broadly resumed longforgone activities. San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties have moved into the tier (with Alameda
County expected to join them Tuesday) designated for areas experiencing moderate transmission, allowing them to resume highrisk activities such as indoor dining at 50% capacity and indoor workouts at 25%. Amusement parks and baseball stadiums are expected to reopen to crowds, subject to capacity and other restrictions. The impulse to gather for the spring holidays will only compound the risks.
While California’s reported infections and hospitalizations remain as low as they have been since last fall, they are no longer falling substantially. Five Bay Area counties — San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Solano and Napa — saw cases rise last week compared with the week before. States across the Northeast and Midwest, meanwhile, are seeing transmission accelerate again, in some cases sharply, and several European countries have reinstated lockdown measures.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, pleaded with the public to exercise patience and caution Monday while acknowledging a “recurring feeling ... of impending doom.”
It’s time for state and local officials to heed and echo her welladvised warning.