PROGRESS SEEN IN STATE BUT DEBATE RAGES OVER REOPENING
California is seeing signs that the increase in coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations is slowing, but there remains wide debate about whether the progress is enough to dramatically ease Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order.
The state has recorded its first weekover-week decline in reported COVID-19 deaths, according to a data analysis by the Los Angeles Times. Two weeks ago, California reported its highest one-week toll — 542 fatalities among people infected with the coronavirus. Last week, the weekly death toll dropped 9 percent to 495.
While it was an improvement, last week’s number was still the third-highest over the course of the pandemic.
Even hard-hit parts of the state have seen some relief.
Los Angeles County, home to 55 percent of California’s COVID-19 deaths despite having only one-quarter of the state’s population, saw its reported weekly death toll flatten for the first time: 315 deaths in each
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of the past two weeks.
Hospitalizations have been flat on a weekly basis in Southern California counties, as well as the San Joaquin Valley, while dropping noticeably in Northern California. Still, California has not seen the sustained 14-day decline in coronavirus cases that the White House has suggested as a key criteria before easing stay-at-home orders. The state reported its highest weekly coronavirus case total April 20-26, with 12,122 cases. Last week, 9,967 cases were reported, an 18 percent decline but still the secondhighest weekly total reported during the pandemic.
Newsom announced Monday that some retailers would be allowed to reopen with modifications on Friday, marking the state’s first major easing of the socialdistancing rules that have been credited with slowing the spread of the coronavirus and leaving California, with more than 2,300 deaths, with far fewer fatalities than hot spots like New York and New Jersey, which have respectively reported tolls of more than 24,000 and more than 7,000, respectively.
But many health officials are urging caution, saying reopening the economy rapidly would cause cases and deaths to increase again.
Santa Clara County executive officer Dr. Jeffrey Smith noted Tuesday that the state death toll is still going up in significant numbers. Last week’s death toll made up nearly one-quarter of California’s cumulative tally of fatalities.
“There’s a lot of talk in California about relaxing shelter-in-place (orders). I just want to point out that we’re still, in California, going up dramatically. So there’s no clinical evidence that shelter-in-place should be relaxed at this point.”
Echoing statements by other medical experts, Smith said loosening up the stay-athome orders will result in more infections and deaths.
With many states significantly relaxing stay-athome orders, Smith noted, that the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is now forecasting a national death toll of more than 134,000 by early August, close to double the current total of more than 71,000. The institute forecasts a California death toll of 4,700 by early August, also roughly double the current number.
California faces a particular challenge because some parts of the state have been hit much harder than others. More than a dozen rural counties have no confirmed cases, and in some suburban regions the number of cases has dropped dramatically.
“Nothing has really changed about the virus since March,” said Los Angeles County public health director Barbara Ferrer. “The virus didn’t get less deadly. The virus didn’t get less infectious. The virus is still out there.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, echoed similar concerns on the national level.
“There are regions, areas, counties, cities in which you can (begin to reopen) safely now. But there are others that if you do that, it’s really dangerous,” Fauci said on CNN Monday. “How many deaths — and how much suffering — are you willing to accept to get back to … some form of normality sooner rather than later?”
Newsom on Tuesday tried to set expectations, stressing social-distancing practices would remain in place as more people would be put at risk when restrictions were lifted.
“We have to maintain the core construct of our stayat-home orders,” he said at a news conference.
The economy will start to reopen, but that doesn’t mean people can “go back to normal,” Newsom said. Since COVID-19 is still present, the reopening relies on Californians remaining cautious and following safety protocols.
The governor criticized two rural Northern California counties that are allowing businesses and restaurants to reopen, saying their decision to defy his statewide stay-at-home order has put their communities at increased risk for a new outbreak.
In Washington Tuesday, Trump administration officials said so much progress had been made in bringing the pandemic under control that they planned to wind down the coronavirus task force in the coming weeks and focus the White House on restarting the economy.
Vice President Mike
Pence, who has led the task force for two months, said it would probably wrap up its work around the end of the May and shift management of the public health response back to the federal agencies whose work it was created to coordinate.
Other administration officials said that under plans still in discussion, the White House would consult with medical experts on a more informal basis and that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, would help oversee a group pushing for progress in developing a vaccine and treatments for the virus.
“It really is all a reflection of the tremendous progress we’ve made as a country,” Pence told reporters at the White House.
There were signals in recent days of the task force’s impending demise: The panel did not meet Saturday, as it typically does, and canceled a meeting Monday. And President
Donald Trump has stopped linking his news briefings to the task force’s meetings and no longer routinely arrays task force members around him in his public appearances, a change that came swiftly after the president spoke one day about the possibility of injecting disinfectants to kill the virus.
Members of the coronavirus task force, including Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, had to urge Americans not to take those steps. And they often served as a public check on Trump’s statements, cautioning about promises of a quick vaccine or the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, a drug promoted by the president.
The decision to phase out the task force has prompted new questions about whether the administration will be adequately organized to address the complex, lifeor-death decisions related to the virus and give sufficient voice to scientists and public health experts in making policy.
“We will have something in a different form,” Trump told reporters Tuesday during a trip to Arizona.
Asked why now was the right time to wind down the task force, Trump replied, “Because we can’t keep our country closed for the next five years.”
If there is a recurrence of cases in the fall, he said, “we’re going to put the flame out.”
White House officials said that medical officials like Birx and Fauci would still be advising the president and be available to answer reporters’ questions.