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At the onset of the coronavirus epidemic, California, a coastal country, was celebrated as a common sense brilliance.
As Donald Trump avoided masks and sanctions and told Americans that the virus “did not come out of nowhere” and “would one day disappear like a miracle”, California leaders first ordered their residents to seek refuge in place.
For months, the state seemed to avert disaster in New York and Louisiana. Despite being the country’s most populous state, with the number of direct flights to the epicenter of the epidemic in China, the death toll in California remained low.
In early summer, however, the pressure to open a back-up increased. Officials found that the state was not immune to national isolation due to social distance and mask-wearing. Between haphazard rules and patchwork of guidelines, the case moved forward.
‘The Most Challenging Moment’
Today, most California infections are under lockdown amid a dramatic surge. More than 1.3 million cases have been lengthened in the state, breaking the record of more than 25,000 infections reported in a single day last week.
Los Angeles County passed a dismal target of 10,000 new Covid-19 cases in a single day last week, and there are fears that the Thanksgiving holiday could result in an increase in infections that could lead to hospital admissions. LA officials said one person is now dying from covid every 20 minutes, and the county’s public health director, Barbara Ferrer, burst into tears at the briefing while talking about the “incredible loss” of more than 8,000 lives.
San Francisco has increased its average case rate from 15 to 30 per 100,000 residents since the holiday. And in San Diego, across the U.S.-Mexico border, more than 100 people are infected every day.
This is the most challenging moment since the outbreak of the epidemic, California Governor Gavin News said last week. “Life is in balance. Lives will be lost unless we work harder than before. “
Hospitals across the state are already under extreme pressure. In Southern California, the capacity of intensive care units has dropped to 10%. In Santa Clara County in the Bay Area, only 30 ICU beds are left for 20 million residents. San Francisco will be out of ICU bed by December 27th.
“The virus is spreading to all of us now,” said Marcia Santini, a registered nurse in the emergency department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center. It will be scary. ”
Staff on the frontlines say they are moving forward after months of devastation and dark winters. “I’ve seen little people come in through the door, and they’re immediately admitted to the ICU,” said Eric Fernandez, a 30-year-old ER nurse at Antal An P Valley Hospital (AVH), north of the MLA. “Most of us have the same idea – what if he gets sick? What if he was a member of our family? ”
Fernandez’s hospital recently received a state amnesty for increasing the number of patients per nurse amid a huge cowardly surge, which has increased staff stress, he said. “We cope as best we can, but it pays taxes emotionally and mentally.”
It was frustrating that people no longer seem to take the Kovid protocol seriously, Shantini said. “Every day we go to work, we put our lives and the lives of our families on the line.”
Back to lockdown
Faced with an increasingly serious situation, the state moved to impose a new stay-at-home order last week, which is a regional one this time around when ICU capacity in a region falls below 15%. Southern California, the Central Valley and the Sacramento region quickly crossed the threshold. In the Bay Area, county officials took pre-effective measures. “We are not doing this just because we want to. “This is about people’s lives,” said the San Francisco mayor of London Breed.
Political leaders and health officials say the new sanctions are crucial. “The virus is now everywhere in our city and in many neighborhoods where it has not been caught before,” said Grant Colfex, director of public health at the San Francisco Department. “Even low-risk activities are now at significant risk because there are more viruses than ever before. Simply put, we can’t stay away from things that we can stay away from. ”
But the response from the people of California has been more mixed. Many have said that the rules, which are expected to survive by Christmas and order residents to stay at home except for essential activities, prohibit hotels from accepting most state guests, shutting down outdoor catering and personal care businesses, and were complicated. Times seemingly contradictory.
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Why should residents minimize contact with other households, but can continue to retail and produce entertainment? Why did the rules initially order the playground to be closed while allowing indoor shopping malls to remain open? Why do the people of California need to limit social contact when their governor and the mayor of San Francisco were attending a celebration at a Michelin-starred restaurant?
Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, said Americans across the country, such as those facing “true epidemic fatigue”, would face a “lockdown” in contrast to the onset of the epidemic, “with less compliance.”
Indeed, opposition to the new measure is particularly strong in rural countries, some of which have long been under consideration – and despite the coronavirus ban of any kind at the time, the virus has spread mainly to low-income Latino farm laborers. Which keeps the state’s b 50bn agro industry afloat.
The rest hit industry is not the industry that is involved in the hard hit, but also in view of the new restrictions. Some restaurants have invested thousands in outdoor dining infrastructure, hoping it will run through the epidemic, just ordering the closure of those facilities.
Shrokina Shams, a spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Association, says the organization’s research shows that 43% of rest restaurant rent owners aren’t sure if their business will survive the next six months. “People who were frustrated – today they just feel frustrated.”
Increase in inequalities
Meanwhile, the latest Kovid increase continues to shed a harsh light on inequality. California has seen record levels of unemployment and many businesses have closed for good, but some sectors – especially the tech industry – have seen steady increases in revenue. Economists are predicting that after the epidemic, California could see a so-called “K-shaped recovery recovery,” where the incomes of the highest earners are rising as fast as those drowning for those struggling.
Latinos in LA County, many of whom do essential jobs, are also contracting the virus at more than twice as many as White residents. The toll of working class neighbors has been particularly disastrous for undocumented people who are unable to access help.
“It simply came to our notice then. They have the right to pay for sick days, but that does not mean that this right is respected, ”said M.A.S. Marissa Nunsio, an advocate for garment workers in Ma, said the covid had erupted in factories that make masks. Nuniso said that in the nine months since the epidemic, she still receives calls from infected workers who are struggling to gain access to tests and are afraid to go to the hospital. “They just say, ‘I hope I’m able to recover from this at home.'”
Marta Induni, director of research at the Auckland-based nonprofit Public Health Institute, said the new lockdown measures would do little to address those inequalities because they do not have the support of workers. “We have a confluence of factors where people are facing economic instability, and it seems like they have no choice but to work even if they get sick,” he said. “And especially in California, we have a large population of undocumented people who have been demonized by the federal government and especially vulnerable.”
Activists hope California will address those disparities as it develops plans to distribute the Covid-19 vaccine. California is on track to receive 327,000 doses in its first shipment, which will arrive in hospitals in the coming days. The state aims to vaccinate 2.16 million people by the end of the year, starting with health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities.
Officials have promised to consider racial equality in distribution efforts, but there is a long way to go to increase confidence in the vaccine and reach out to the hardest-affected communities.
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