Hope turns to disappointment, stoicism as state rolls back the reopenings

"We were just getting our mojo back" said one restaurant owner

For a fleeting moment, there was hope.

Salons opened this week for haircuts and color in Santa Clara County. Diners ate outside in Alameda County. And during the Obon festival this week at the San Jose Buddhist Church, the minister invited small groups to remember loved ones for a rare coronavirus-era visit inside the temple.

But in the flash of the governor’s new order, everything changed, reverted, slipped back, collapsed.

“We were just getting our mojo back, just getting some decent revenue,” said Ed Westmoreland of Eddie Papa’s American Hangout restaurant in Pleasanton. “Then the notice came out saying we’re going to have to shut down again. It’s just — challenging.”

Californians were reeling Tuesday from an alarming rise in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations that has prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to close all bars across the state and force restaurants, wineries, zoos, museums and card rooms to suspend indoor activities indefinitely.

The restrictions go further in 32 “watch list counties,” with 80% of the state’s population, including every Bay Area county but San Mateo and San Francisco, closing gyms, places of worship, shopping malls, barbershops and salons. In Southern California, it’s even more dire. Mayor Eric Garcetti said he was on the verge of locking down Los Angeles again, as the county reported more than 4,000 new cases and 72 deaths on Tuesday.

The statewide order Newsom announced Monday isn’t a complete reset back to the lock down California experienced in March and April when the pandemic first began to spread out of control. Retail shops, takeout dining, state parks, hotels and other facilities that were closed then remain open in many places now.

But the general shift backward is a harsh reminder that California must be more vigilant if it is going to again bend the curve and reduce the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, health experts said, with several noting that Newsom was facing no good options.

“It’s tough,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at UC-San Francisco. “Hopefully we’ll be able to emerge quickly from this. But this is the kind of hammer that can get transmission under control so we’ll able to move forward. I’d hate to be owning a bar now. It’s just untenable for business like that. However, it’s also untenable to have a runaway pandemic raging throughout the state. He did the right thing to try and rein it back in.”

Rutherford said that the state should see the impact in about three weeks. With the first day of school scheduled next month for millions of children, turning the trend around takes on an added urgency, he said.

The economic climate has been particularly rough for small businesses.

“I am angry, but I’m not sure who to be angry at,” said Octavio Guzman of La Penca Azul restaurant in Alameda. “Our local politicians? It’s been a very tough time.”

The restrictions are so demoralizing, many don’t see an end in sight.

Downtown Yoga in Pleasanton has been closed for four months, with owner Jim Coughlin trying to hold onto loyal clients with recorded classes.

“It’s like being on the Atlantic Ocean during the perfect storm, in a rubber raft, and you’ve got no comfort, no support,” Coughlin said. “Everyone’s looking for answers and no one has them.”

At the same time, he doesn’t want to get sick or get anyone else sick. So even though he could open with six instead of 20 people in his studio, he chooses not to.

“I did a yoga class in the park,” he said. “There were 40 people out there. But I don’t want to do it again. Trying to make the best of a bad situation might make it worse.”

One issue making the crisis particularly frustrating is that the economy and the pandemic are not two separate issues.

“The economy and epidemic are joined at the hip. The economy is not going to recover unless we control the pandemic,” said Anat Admati, a professor of finance and economics at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

Admati said that the federal and state government need to provide more financial assistance to small business, extend unemployment insurance and help renters until COVID-19 wanes significantly. Further expanding testing is key, she said.

“If you could really reduce the population of people out on the street who are infected and who don’t know it, that would help get the pandemic and the economy under control,” she said.

The pandemic has already killed 7,087 people in California in the past four months — the equivalent of 20 different 747 crashes. Newsom embraced the science early, and took steps before other governors and President Trump to communicate the gravity, said Jack Pitney, a professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College. While he has explained the policies and statistics well, he could put “a greater focus on empathy” to acknowledge the economic pain and fear many Californians are feeling, Pitney said.

At San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin, the Rev. Gerald Sakamoto said Newsom’s new orders coincided with the Obon festival, the annual commemoration of ancestors. Although the church had been streaming festivities on Facebook, he had taken reservations for small family groups to come into the temple starting Tuesday morning. But the new rules forced him to cancel. Now he’s trying to take it in stride.

“We should do what we can for the sake of others, that’s basic in Buddhism,” Sakamoto said. “It’s not what I want, but it’s about how we can act in a way that’s compassionate and work for the betterment of all. We need to understand that the protocols are in place not to restrict me, but rather to reduce the possibility of spreading the virus.”