Newsom’s order ‘dims’ California’s reopening
Counties must curtail indoor activities amid surge; ‘Who knows how long it’ll be this time’
With coronavirus continuing its surge in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that the state is significantly rolling back its reopening plans and adding counties to his growing watchlist.
Newsom ordered all counties across the state to immediately close indoor dining, bars, movie theaters, zoos and museums. In addition, 30 counties on the governor’s watchlist for troubling coronavirus trends — where 80% of Californians live — must also shutter gyms, hair salons, places of worship, indoor malls and nonessential offices.
In the Bay Area, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma were all on the governor’s watchlist as of Monday and required to abide by the order.
Alameda and Santa Clara counties, which were added to the list Sunday, will be subject to the re
strictions after 12:01 a.m. Wednesday — the third consecutive day they’ll have been on the list.
The state adds counties to the watchlist if they exceed its thresholds for certain coronavirus-related criteria, including significant uptick in COVID-19 infection rates, increases in hospitalizations and availability of intensive care unit beds and ventilators.
The governor’s announcement comes a week after the Fourth of July holiday and during the height of summer, which in California is typically marked by family vacations on the beach and weekend hiking trips to the mountains. Now, stir-crazy residents must puzzle through what is safe to do.
“We’re moving back into a modification mode of our original stay-at-home order but doing so utilizing a dimmer switch, not an offon switch,” Newsom said.
In response to a spike in cases over the weekend — 330,600 people have been infected with COVID-19 in California while the death toll has climbed to 7,082 — the state deemed it necessary to “dim” reopening efforts, he said.
As of Monday, Newsom said, the state is averaging more than 8,200 cases a day. Hospitalizations have risen 28% over the past two weeks, and the rate of coronavirus tests returning positive results is now at 7.7% — up from 4.6% about three weeks ago.
Newsom said what prompted the state to impose more restrictions again was a spike in hospitalizations and ICU use in rural regions. Placer and Butte counties, for instance, only have 20% of their ICU capacity available.
“We were able to suppress the spread of this virus, we were able to knock down the growth of this in the beginning. We’re going to do that again,” Newsom said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”
Larry Gerston, public policy professor emeritus at San Jose State University, said Newsom’s backtracking reflects the mounting pressure governors across the nation are feeling in trying to cure a struggling economy and appease an impatient public.
“One governor after another has given in to pressure from various sources, whether it’s businesses going bankrupt or the public tired of going without the services that they want,” Gerston said. “The bottom line in every case is that the state is reopening too quickly.”
Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith said he understands the news may be frustrating to residents and business owners but he is happy to see the governor tackling the spread of the virus with a statewide approach again.
“It looks like an old regressive action by the governor to try and control the virus, which is something I’ve been advocating for a while,” he said. “The county-by-county approach was not working. It only causes inconsistency, and the virus doesn’t know what county it’s in.”
Acknowledging the upward trend in cases, Contra Costa County health officials had announced over the weekend they were shutting down indoor worship services and requiring outdoor diners to wear masks at all times except when putting food and drinks into their mouths. Closure of the county’s hair salons — imposed under the governor’s new order — comes just one month after they were permitted to open.
Barbara Collaro, a cosmetologist at Hair at the Ritz in Pleasant Hill, was frantically calling clients Monday afternoon to inform them of the newly imposed orders and to cancel dozens of appointments.
“It’s disappointing because we’ve been doing everything we possibly could to keep our salon clean and follow all the rules and then they just shut us down anyway,” Collaro said. “Last time they said it would be three weeks, but it was three months.
“Who knows how long it’ll be this time.”
For Santa Clara County residents and business owners, the announcement of the looming closures had somewhat of a whiplash effect. For the first time in four months, the county allowed hair salons, tattoo parlors, hotels and certain gyms to open their doors on Monday. But later that same day, salons and gyms were notified that they could only stay open for 48 hours before shuttering once again.
At CrossFit Willow Glen, clients returned to their gym Monday under completely new circumstances — class sizes limited to 10 people, masks required and temperatures taken upon entry. But even those newly added levels of precautions couldn’t help the gym ride the coronavirus wave.
“Just being able to walk in the door and work out with other people — even if it is from 12 feet away — means a lot to everyone,” owner Audra Soltis said. “I’m surprised everything changed so quickly, but I guess it’s not unexpected, sadly.”