Return to full-scale lockdown ahead?
Experts: Rollbacks might not be enough for areas with bad outbreaks, such as L.A. County
New questions loom over California now that bars and dining rooms have once again closed their doors and most of the state no longer can go to the gym or get a haircut: Will this reversal of reopening be enough? Or will California need to make a full retreat into lockdown if it wants to stop the surge of new coronavirus cases and deaths?
As Californians grappled with losing freedoms that in some cases they only very recently had regained, epidemiologists said Wednesday the answer likely will depend on where you are.
Areas with particularly bad outbreaks might soon need to take residents back to the sheltered-in-place days of spring.
Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of UC San Francisco’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, predicted Los Angeles County
— home to a quarter of California residents but more than half of deaths from COVID-19 — would go back onto lockdown, as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti warned Tuesday. So could Orange and Imperial counties, she said.
“There it’s very clear: You’ve got to shut much more down,” Bibbins-Domingo said.
Meanwhile in less hard-hit regions, like much of the Bay Area, the rollback could prove effective at keeping the coronavirus from spreading as it has elsewhere.
“There are some parts of the state I am going to guess that need to do more soon,” she said. “There are other parts of the state that need to pay attention to what is happening in the worst parts of the state.”
“None of our counties can be complacent at this time.”
Dr. George Rutherford, another UC San Francisco epidemiologist, predicted the renewed restrictions’ impact would vary.
“I think they’ll have some effect in the Bay Area, although it may not be as pronounced as the effect in Southern California” and the Central Valley, Rutherford said.
The challenge for state officials such as Gov. Gavin Newsom will be to stay on top of what regions need more restrictive rules and where aspects of daily life cangoonsafely.
“You have a nation-state with probably six different epidemics going on,” Rutherford said. “It’s damn complicated to balance all of those competing interests.”
The number of new coronavirus cases across California has been on the rise for weeks, making the state one of several across the country grappling with worsening outbreaks.
According to data compiled by this news organization, the seven-day average of new cases reported across California now stands at 8,792 per day — more than 2 1/2 times the 3,100 cases per day the state was averaging a month ago.
Hospitalizations have rapidly increased as well, with more than 8,000 people being treated for confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases this week, compared with about 4,500 a month ago.
Finally, the number of people dying from COVID-19 has been rising; over the weekend, the seven-day average of coronavirus deaths hit its highest point since the pandemic began, at 100. Following a string of less intensive moves to pause or reverse the reopening process in hard-hit areas, Newsom on Monday issued a statewide order closing indoor dining, bars, movie theaters, zoos and museums.
He also shut down gyms, places of worship, shopping malls, barbershops and salons in 32 counties on California’s statewide watchlist for coronavirus outbreaks — areas that are home to 80% of the state’s residents, where new cases are rapidly increasing or hospital capacity could run low.
As California tries to reflatten its curve, UC Berkeley epidemiologist Art Reingold said the state’s challenges will be familiar ones it has long shared with the country as a whole: scaling up testing and contact tracing efforts, protecting vulnerable residents of facilities such as nursing homes and prisons, and ensuring people comply with face mask and social distancing rules.
“It’s not clear exactly what it’s going to take to control the spread of this virus,” Reingold said. “The scope of the problem at this point is substantial, and what that means is that all of these various measures that we hope can help just have a harder job.”
Reingold said it could be time for California to consider more aggressively enforcing rules like its mask requirement and ban on gatherings. To this point the state has mostly relied on people voluntarily complying or has put the onus on businesses.
“There is plenty of evidence that not everybody is on board with these things,” he said. “We shouldn’t ask store clerks and other people keeping our stores open to risk violent attacks and verbal abuse or the like for enforcing rules and regulations.”
For a public growing restless after four months under coronavirus restrictions, there’s the risk that fatigue makes people more likely to engage in risky behaviors as well.
Add to that the confusion over frequently changing lists of businesses that can or can’t operate — even as someone who follows coronavirus restrictions closely, Bibbins-Domingo said she sometimes has a hard time remembering which counties are on the state’s watchlist or which activities are allowed in a given area.
The key, she said, is for governments to show people how continuing to sacrifice now will make it possible for more essential aspects of life, like schools, to return sooner.
“We have to start messaging in a way for people to understand: The virus is with us, the virus will be with us for a long time,” Bibbins-Domingo said. “It’s a marathon and not a sprint, unfortunately, and we’re going to have to take each step cautiously.”