SACRAMENTO, California (AP) – Before the Memorial Day weekend, California’s mood was celebratory. The state had averted dire predictions of a coronavirus surge, hospitalizations were starting to drop, and restaurants and most other businesses had reopened.
As July 4 approaches, the mood has soured. Infection and hospitalization rates are increasing rapidly. Most bars have been ordered closed along with restaurant dinners. Many beaches are off limits or have restrictions to limit crowds. The fireworks shows are canceled and Governor Gavin Newsom is pleading with residents to avoid the Christmas tradition of backyard barbecues and other gatherings of family and friends.
In about five weeks, the nation’s most populous state went from a success story to a warning story. Health experts say nothing went wrong, but contributing factors included a population satisfied by a long series of positive trends, the rapid reopening of companies, a confusing patchwork of local rules and enforcement, and Newsom’s late adoption of a Mandatory mask rule, June 18.
“On Memorial Day, why do we simply unleash the gates without a statewide mask order? I wish I had an answer to that, and it’s alarming to us, ”said Stephanie Roberson, director of government relations for the California Nurses Association.
Just before that vacation, about 3,000 people were in the hospital because of the virus; now there are more than 5,000. Many more people are being screened and in the past two weeks that has helped propel a jump of nearly 50% in confirmed cases to 230,000. But the infection rate has also risen sharply from just over 4% of those screened around Memorial Day to 6% now.
Newsom, a data-driven governor, won praise for issuing the state’s first home stay order in mid-March and moving quickly to shore up the state’s health care system. The first-term Democrat has hated to admit to any mistakes during the pandemic, saying all his decisions were based on the best information available at the time, always in consultation with public health officials.
“It is easy to criticize, but the response in the state, with the exception of some counties, has been thoughtful, responsible, evidence-based, and where it has been confusing it is because it is confusing,” said Dr. Bob Wachter, chairman of the department. of Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco.
Signs of trouble began to surface last week. Newsom resumed the almost daily press conferences he had abandoned and begged Californians to wear face masks. On Sunday, it withdrew its mid-June decision to reopen all bars because health experts say they are particularly prone to the spread of the virus. On Wednesday, he expanded his order and closed more bars, wineries, indoor restaurant restaurants, movie theaters, and other indoor entertainment venues for at least three weeks. He also said that there should be no more singing in religious services.
“We are in a very precarious situation,” said Anne Rimoin, professor of epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles.
He noted that May produced a quick reopening that led to Memorial Day weekend and then Father’s Day. Many people came together as they have in the past.
“All of these things together gave ample opportunity for this virus to spread, and I think this really shows how quickly we can lose all the gains we made,” said Rimoin.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, said he has no regrets about how California progressed. But he said there was “poor execution” of the state’s reopening plan by some companies and individuals who were more focused on when they could reopen rather than how to do it safely.
“We try to give people the tools to reduce transmission, and I think in many ways it was not followed,” he said.
Newsom, Ghaly and local health officials are now trying to make the public again understand the seriousness of the situation and the personal responsibility necessary to reverse the trend.
The message resonated with Tyler Bertao, a 26-year-old from San Francisco who said he is “extremely frightened” by the increasing number of California cases.
“I think we will have to go into another major closure,” he said.
When Newsom issued the order to stay home on March 19, the public listened heavily and the state fared much better than places like New York and New Jersey. Even President Donald Trump, a frequent critic of California, announced Newsom.
But the one-size-fits-all approach began to face resistance in a massive state with nearly 40 million residents and the world’s fifth-largest economy. In early May, after implementing a methodical reopening process and under pressure from rural counties with few infections, Newsom began to cede more control to counties to determine what businesses and activities could be resumed.
“The bottom line is: people can go at their own pace, and we are training our local health directors and county officials who understand their local communities and conditions,” Newsom said May 18. “We’re going to start seeing a lot more activity, let’s make sure we do it carefully and very, very strategically.”
But the shift to local control created a mosaic of rules. Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retail Association, said her organization, which represents supermarket chains, department stores and others, had long called for more consistency. On the masks, he noted an Orange County shopping complex with stores in two separate cities with different rules on the masks, making it difficult for store workers to deal with annoying public.
“You would literally go from the Macy’s furniture store in Irvine, which is where you would have to put the mask on, to Best Buy across the street and you wouldn’t,” he said. “Our perspective has always been easier to have a state ordinance or mandate that we all comply with and that we can all enforce.”
Wachter of the University of California-San Francisco said that a set of monolithic rules would not have been feasible in a state as large as California. But he was surprised at how quickly California’s fortunes changed when cases began to climb in mid-June. That was just when bars, gyms, and other high-risk businesses were authorized to open in most counties, and roughly two weeks after Memorial Day and widespread protests against police violence.
Californians may have adopted a false sense of security when the state did not experience the horror New York City faces, he said. More than 30,000 people have died in New York; in California, about 6,000.
“The virus couldn’t care less about what the state’s policy is. The virus cares if it can get to the back of the nose or the back of the throat, “she said.
Beginning the weekend, Newsom said the state will create strike teams to enforce the mask order in companies. As cases increase, that’s one of the most important things the state can do, Rimoin said.
“The order of the mask, of course, should have been in place before, but you must also be willing to enforce the order of the mask,” he said.
