Newsom’s choice to lift state orders makes little sense
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to lift regional stay-athome orders across the state makes absolutely no sense.
The governor’s irresponsible action Monday is the latest in a series of blunders that is severely damaging California’s ability to end the COVID-19 crisis.
The drop in the number of coronavirus cases over the weekend is good news, but the overall outlook hardly justifies opening up businesses and activities. That approach has only led to ensuing surges that further cripple the state.
California is far, far away from being out of the woods.
As of Saturday, the state’s overall intensive care unit hospital bed capacity stood at 4.5% availability. The Southern California region, which includes Los Angeles and San Diego, had 0% ICU hospital bed capacity. The San Joaquin Valley had 4.5% ICU capacity. The Bay Area’s 23.4% ICU capacity is markedly improved, but public health officials throughout the state should be aghast at the thought of lifting the stay-at-home orders, given the current state of availability.
Troubling ICU hospital bed capacity numbers are hardly the only concern.
While the seven-day average of daily new cases is down 43% from the Dec. 22 peak, the average as of Sunday, 25,576, is still 2 ½ times as great as at any time prior to the current surge.
The seven-day average of daily deaths is down just 5% from the peak on Jan. 15, and remains 3 ½ times as great as at any time prior to the current surge.
The percentage of tests in the state coming back positive has been steadily declining over the past couple of weeks, now down to 8.1% for the seven-day average. While that’s a marked improvement from the start of the year, it’s a level that before the current surge had not been reached since May, when testing was less widely available.
Meanwhile, researchers in Los Angeles have reported the discovery of a new, fastspreading variant that may be driving the Southern California surge. The variant, labeled CAL.20C, may or may not be more deadly or contagious than other forms of the virus. It is also unknown to what degree current vaccines are effective in combating the variant and other variants identified in South Africa and Great Britain. But the variants are spreading through Southern California counties and should be cause for increased concern.
Finally, Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker reported California now ranks dead last among the 50 states administering COVID-19 vaccines. California has given 37.3% of its available vaccines, joining Minnesota (39.8%) Virginia (40.2%) and Alabama (41.1%) in the vaccination Hall of Shame.
The national rate stands at 48.6%. The top three states include North Dakota (82.8%), West Virginia (73.0%) and New Mexico (68.6%).
Newsom reminded Californians during a news conference that COVID-19 “deaths continue to be significant, and this is a sober reminder of how deadly this pandemic remains now more than ever.”
But his action Monday ignores that reality. Newsom should be extending the stayat-home orders rather than ending them altogether. Instead, he is repeating a strategy that has done next to nothing to bring the COVID-19 crisis to an end.