California calls end to covid emergency

Five states maintain broad powers for governors, but few restrictions persist

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s coronavirus emergency officially ended Tuesday, nearly three years after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the nation’s first statewide stay- at- home order and just days after the state reached the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths related to the virus.

As California’s emergency winds down, such declarations continue in just five other states — including Texas and Illinois — signaling an end to the expanded legal powers of governors to suspend laws in response to the disease. President Joe Biden announced last month the federal government will end its own version May 11.

Newsom signed Tuesday a proclamation officially ending the state of emergency, declaring "the conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property ... no longer exist." The end of California's order will have little to no effect on most people as Newsom already lifted most of the state's restrictions, like those that required masks, closed beaches and forced many businesses to close.

Illinois’ order will end in May alongside the federal order, while the governors of Rhode Island and Delaware recently extended their coronavirus emergency declarations. In New Mexico, public health officials are weighing whether to extend a covid-19 health emergency beyond its Friday expiration date.

Texas, meanwhile, hasn’t had any major coronavirus restrictions for years, but Republican Gov. Greg Abbott keeps extending his state’s emergency declaration because it gives him the power to stop some of the states’ more liberal cities from imposing their own restrictions, like requiring masks or vaccines.

Abbott has said he’ll keep the emergency order — and his expanded powers — in place until the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passes a law to prevent local governments from imposing virus restrictions on their own.

While California’s emergency declaration is ending, other local emergencies will remain in place — including in Los Angeles County, home to nearly 10 million people.

The Los Angeles emergency order encourages mask use in some public places like business and trains and for residents who have been exposed to the virus. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to end the order March 31.

Many public health experts say it makes sense that California’s order is coming to a close.

California ended up faring better than other states, but they did worse than some other countries, like Sweden, said Jeffrey Klausner, professor of clinical population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California.

“I think if we had better focused our resources on those most at risk, we probably could have avoided more deaths,” he said.

The pandemic strained California’s health care system, which has yet to fully recover, said Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association. She said hospitals remain overwhelmed — not from covid patients, but from an influx of people returning to the health care system after staying away during the pandemic.

She said a majority of California’s hospitals are losing money, prompting fears some could close — just as a community hospital in the state’s Central Valley did in December.

“While the state’s covid public health emergency is formally concluding, the health care system emergency remains,” Coyle said.

Health care workers have felt the strain, too, working long hours among people infected with a highly contagious and potentially life-threatening disease. The strain has prompted a workforce shortage, with competing proposals to remedy it.

Meanwhile, local public health departments worry the end of the coronavirus emergency will mean a return to limited funding for their budgets, an issue exposed in the early days of the pandemic when many counties did not have enough people to respond to the crisis.

Newsom is proposing this year cutting nearly $50 million in public health workforce training programs, part of his plan to cover a projected budget deficit.

Overall, Newsom’s budget proposal would sustain $300 million in public health spending, including $100 million for 404 new positions in the state Department of Public Health, including areas of workforce training and emergency preparedness and response.

The money will “modernize state and local public health infrastructure and transition to a resilient public health system,” said H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for the California Department of Finance.