Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday cleared a key barrier for Yolo County to reopen restaurants, stores, offices and limited other venues. Previously, they could not reopen if the county had experienced a death in the past two weeks resulting from COVID—Yolo County last Tuesday suffered two deaths.
On Monday, that requirement disappeared from the state’s list of criteria, with Governor Newsom stating at his noon briefing that they have modified those requirements, focusing more on a county’s ability to maintain control of the spread of the virus.
Yolo County has had just 11 new cases in the last two weeks, but it has had four deaths, two of which were outside of the nursing home.
If Yolo County did reopen there would be strict rules on social distancing and wearing of masks.
Large segments would still remain closed.
Among the activities not permitted:
A variety of personal services like hair, nail and other salons, tattoo parlors, as well as gyms and fitness studios.
Hospitality services like bars, as well as wineries, tasting rooms and lounges.
Entertainment venues such as movie theaters, and also indoor museums, gallery spaces and even zoos and libraries.
Community centers, public pools, playgrounds, and picnic areas would remain closed—although a case could probably be made for playgrounds and picnic areas to reopen with some regulations.
Religious services and other cultural ceremonies would be remains closed. Also still closed would be nightclubs, concert venues, live audience sports, festivals, theme parks—basically anything that has large groups of people gathering would remain closed.
Finally, still closed would be hotels and lodging for the purpose of leisure and tourism.
At noon yesterday, Governor Newsom noted that he is in the process of preparing to announce statewide orders in the coming weeks which would allow in-store retail shopping, and allow barbers and salons to open as well as professional sporting events without spectators. At this point, we are still several weeks away from things like getting haircuts at salons and going to churches with large numbers of people.
Yolo County was already in the process of appealing to the state under the old rules, arguing that the deaths suffered were not an indication of large numbers of new infections.
Yolo County now believes they meet state standards to move into phase 2 of economic reopening. That would move Yolo ahead of large coastal counties like Los Angeles and San Francisco, which are not only taking more cautious routes, but are still facing severe impacts—particular Los Angeles County which has experienced 12,000 new cases over the last two weeks, one of five counties which has added more than 100 cases per 100,000 people.
During the press conference, Governor Newsom said he believes that the new criteria would allow 53 of the state’s 58 counties to move more quickly to reopen without running afoul with the stay-at-home orders. Already, 24 smaller counties have begun to reopen.
These moves in California come as many states are moving to re-open at various speeds, even as the death toll has surpassed 90,000 and experts are warning that reopening too quickly could lead to a second wave of infections, further delaying any ultimate return to normalcy.
Ultimately, the key to really returning to normal is linked to the development of a vaccine.
The good news on that front is that a drug maker, Moderna, announced Monday that they had reached a new milestone in the testing of a vaccine. Their initial results on the first vaccine attempted on human subjects showed the vaccine to be safe and to stimulate an immune response against the virus.
That was enough to send stocks soaring on Monday, but the reality is, even now, the vaccine will not arrive quickly. Reports note that Moderna has run successful tests on just eight people, ages 18 to 55. They have not tested them on older patients, considered most vulnerable to the virus, and the results do not yet prove that the vaccine will prevent people from getting sick.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Good to see Gov. Newsom coming to his senses as one death in 14 days being able to shut down a county’s economy is ridiculous as I stated last week.
I am very concerned that this is going to go badly. Collectively, everyone in the state and regions is going nuts.
Does anyone consider how much inter-county travel is still going on? Are people from relatively highly-infected counties visiting restaurants and other newly-open places in neighboring counties? Face coverings are still not required in Sacramento County, next door, and if restaurants open most of the time no one except staff will be wearing them. In interior spaces, it’s not only about social distancing, but airflow. There’s no requirement for increasing airflow in restaurants.
If cases increase in any individual county, are the counties next door required to change their policies? No. There’s still a lag time for symptoms, and as we know many who are infected are asymptomatic. We see what’s happening in Texas.
Sure, there is more support out there with tracers and so on, but as the Bee article makes very clear, we lack the social solidarity that gives all the active measures a good foundation.
I agree this is likely to go badly. I’ve already made plans with my family about how we will protect ourselves.
Sacramento will get none of my business. F*ck you Sacramento.
This has a very good chance of going badly. Few cases also means lots of dry grass, ready to burn. As TE points out, matches coming from everywhere.
Though I doubt we are this stupid, here is how terminally stupid, and dare I say racist-stupid (see article), some people in Georgia are. This article is behind a paywall, but there are ways to capture it with some effort, and it’s worth a read:
A preview from Georgia about how America might reemerge from the coronavirus: Eating, drinking, touching and throwing caution to the wind
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/17/coronavirus-reopening-shopping-mall-georgia/?arc404=true
You also have Texas where they re-opened and now are having record increases in cases.
Also, it turns out both Georgia and Florida hired 3-year-olds, or criminals, to do their statistical analyses on the Coronavirus:
Georgia, Florida accused of fudging or bungling COVID-19 testing data to make state look better
https://www.nwherald.com/2020/05/19/georgia-florida-accused-of-fudging-or-bungling-covid-19-testing-data-to-make-state-look-better/afix7zf/
David should change the name of the Davis Vanguard to the Davis Fearguard.
I suggest we just keep the economy locked down until after the November election. Either the tribe of the left will win in their strategy to exploit the virus to destroy the voter’s confidence in caring for themselves… and thus demand that their nanny government care for them, or the voters will wake up to the awesome destructive power of the media-backed administrative state and send these little dictators packing back to re-strategize for how they can defeat the Great Experiment once and for all. But we need this giant inflection point and decision to be done and over with.
Meanwhile all the big businesses the pour campaign cash into the coffers of the establishment politicians are doing BETTER with the COVID-19 orders… while those Republican-leaning small businesses are being crushed.
In any case, I will have a hard time feeling sympathy for those small business owners that have voted these little dictators into office.
Jeff
I will only address one of your points. This has nothing to do with a desire for a nanny government to care for us. It has everything to do with a legitimate concern that our local private hospitals would not have the capacity to care for all if there were to be a major outbreak. You recognized that during the Ebola outbreak. I am surprised that you do not see that as a concern now when the chances of rapid transmission are so much higher.
I hear time and time again from the non-libertarian right that public safety is a legitimate function of government. So I find arguments that this is nanny government a little disconnected from the law and order frame we typically hear. In fact, I would argue that one reason for the disconnect is who the actions impact – in one case not-Jeff and in this case, Jeff. (Insert other names for Jeff to make it more generalizable).
I am deeply concerned ( with apologies to Susan Collins). I was concerned enough to express many of the points I made in today’s article about masking and prevention of other means of viral spread to both the Health Council yesterday and the BOS today.
My specific concern is not so much about activities at outdoor venues, but about the plans for the opening of indoor restaurants and bars where, because of the nature of the activity:
Masking is impossible/social distancing ( at least from one’s server) is impossible/ duration of stay is typically at least an hour thus increasing one’s risk of exposure/ inadequate ventilation/ asymptomatic/ presymptomatic and minimally symptomatic spread.
We are doing well numerically in this county specifically because of the measures we took early and have continued. The worst outcome I can conceive is that we throw all that away and are forced back into full shut down by a surge made likely in part by the inability to control the activities of those who do not believe we have a problem and those who freely bring the problem to us from adjacent and distant counties.
Here Here.
No Kill I.
It’s so odd to read the comments here, in regard to what I see on the news every day (regarding what’s occurring around the county, the region, state, country, and beyond).
Actually, that might apply to a variety of topics.
I think if you were on things like Facebook and Twitter, you wouldn’t find the comments here nearly as strange. Although I do find it interesting for all of the complaints by some about the lack of conservatives, the one thing really missing on here that I see on Facebook is that there are no left wing commenters – we have right wing, we have centrists, we have mainstream liberals, but no real leftists.
You’ve got to be kidding.
Not at all. I’m talking about people on the left that love Bernie and HATE Biden. What you see here primarily are liberals.
See, you’re already backing off. I’d name names but that’s not kosher.
So the criteria to being considered a leftist is to be a Bernie fan and hate Biden?
There’s a lot more to it than that.
I didn’t back off. There are not any leftists who post here regularly. Even Tia who is probably furthest left and wouldn’t object to me saying that is firmly in the mainstream. Biden is the easiest current issue. The differentiation is willingness to support reform v. dismantle. A liberal will want to reform the criminal justice system, the police – a leftist will want to abolish the police and the criminal justice system for example. I don’t think anyone who regularly posts here is in that category. There are leftists who would rather see Trump win than Biden. Some have started a never Biden movement. We are way off topic, my last comment on this subject.
You started it.
My last comment.
You have got to be kidding.
“My last comment.” Promises, promises, I’m willing to bet $5 that you’ll have plenty more comments. The right never shuts up, the more mendacious the louder. You want to label me a leftist? Okay by me.This pandemic has proven my oft repeated claim about the intellectual and moral deficits of the right.
I believe he meant “on this comment”, not “bye bye forever”.
Ooooooooo . . . kaaaaaay . . . .
Label: You’re a leftist.
OK.
Being a right-left (more bifurcated than middle of the road), I’d have to say I agree with you on this one. Not that I think most righties are a stupid as the ones making arses of themselves in the media, but having said that, a HUGE (and dangerous) number of those espousing self-reliance and constitutional rights are failing to see that those values don’t win in a pandemic, and what we have here is a common enemy that we need to fight through self-sacrifice, not “I want to get my nails done and hug my friends, and the constitution says I can”.