Gov. Gavin Newsom today said he will revisit the statewide stay-at-home order in two weeks if the curve of COVID-19 cases in California is not only “flattening” but “declining.”
That does not mean the order will be completely lifted, Newsom said, but certain aspects could be loosened if the state has made enough headway in a six-pronged plan laid out at Tuesday’s press conference.
The changes will also be tied to the state’s number of hospitalizations and the number of patients in intensive care, Newsom said.
California’s six indicators for modifying the stay-at-home order are:
- The ability to monitor and protect communities through testing, contact tracing, isolating and supporting those who are positive or exposed
- The ability to prevent infection in people who are at risk for more severe COVID-19 cases
- The ability of the hospital and health systems to handle surges
- The ability to develop therapeutics to meet the demand
- The ability for businesses, schools and child care facilities to support physical distancing
- The ability to determine when to reinstitute certain measures, such as the stay-at-home orders, if necessary.
California Department of Public Health Director Dr. Sonia Angell laid out two key questions for each indicator and said the new normal will look very different.
Restaurants may reopen but it will be with fewer tables, temperature checks at the door and upped protection for employees. Face masks will also become commonplace until residents develop immunity or a vaccine is developed. “This time period that we’re entering is not about going back to where we were before,” she said. “It’s about going forward in ways that are healthy for all of us. But it won’t look the same.”
Newsom first ordered California’s roughly 40 million residents to stay home on March 19 just days after six Bay Area counties issued a shelter-in-place order.
Santa Clara County in late March extended its order through early May along with several counties throughout the Bay Area and Central Coast.
“It’s important to let folks know that we’re not in a permanent state as long as we don’t make the decision to pull back too soon,” Newsom told reporters in a presser today. “Give us a few weeks to really build this infrastructure and answer all those tough questions and then I can come out and be much more specific about when and how we see a blended approach to the stay-at-home order.”
As of today, there are a total of 1,666 confirmed cases and 60 deaths in Santa Clara County. Nearly 200 are currently hospitalized and 74 are in the ICU.
The number of Santa Clara Country COVID-19 patients in hospitals has been constant for two weeks. There are plenty of empty beds in acute care and ICU units. There are over 400 ventilators not being used. Santa Clara can and should let some more (say 20%) businesses open now. Keep us old folks and those at risk in shelter in place. Let out 20% of the younger folks.
Ok, boomer, you’re free to stay home until some authority says what’s safe for you to do. Society will go on without you for a long, long time.
That was rude
The justification for the national emergency declared by President Trump on March 13, 2020 was:
“The spread of COVID-19 within our Nation’s communities threatens to strain our Nation’s healthcare systems.”
It is now evident that our national healthcare systems and our state healthcare systems are able to handle the healthcare demands of the COVID-19 cases within their normal and existing capabilities.
Treating COVID-19 as a “national emergency” is no longer necessary, and may not have been necessary in the first place.
President Trump should declare the “national emergency” over.
“Our nation’s healthcare systems” are completely able to cope with the “strain”.
There is no shortage of hospital beds.
There is no shortage of ventilators.
Field hospitals in Seattle and other places have been closed, some without ever treating a patient.
Santa Clara County’s hospital “surge” capability of 1529 beds reports only 19 beds in use.
Healthcare workers have been laid off.
Governor Newsom should go much farther than “loosening” his “stay at home order”. He should simply cancel it and remind people it is their responsibility to be hygienic and sanitary.
Appropriate “social distancing” is a good idea and should be encouraged, but not commanded. People are aware of the risks and can make their own judgements and decisions. And, statistically, the risk of an infection are low – one in two thousand encounters. And the consequences of infection are likewise tolerable for all but a small percentage of at risk people.
The war is over. The crisis has passed. We won.
Bring the troops home. Demobilize, Shut down the war industries. Arrest and prosecute the war profiteers and looters.
Return to your farms, your businesses, and your jobs.
Well said Bubbles, I completely agree with you.
The dire predictions by Chicken Littles Fauci, Cuomo, Newsom, Breed, Liccardo, Cody, and others have all proven to be vastly overstated. Those false predictions are what have destroyed our economy, eviscerated our constitutional protections, and placed tens of millions of people out of work and in what is essentially house arrest. ENOUGH!
Strangely, the ACLU has been MIA regarding the unconstitutional orders promulgated nationwide; except to defend the “rights” of convicted inmates in our prisons. How about sticking up for the rights of the vast law abiding middle class for once, ACLU?
COVID is clearly the creation of the Chinese Communist Party. Everyone should immediately start reading the labels on everything we buy. If it says “made in China”,don’t buy it. Look around for a similar product, hopefully made in America; but in any event, never buy a single thing again that was made or processed in China. We may have to pay more, but we need to shut down China’s economy. Also, don’t sell China anything, particularly not food. And lay off Americans of Chinese ancestry. They didn’t do this. The CCP did.
> And lay off Americans of Chinese ancestry.
Boy, are you in trouble now.
This is most doubled “double entendre” of any double entendre I have ever seen.
They don’t get any more double than this.
Mr. O’Connor, I pray for you. This is bigoted vitriol, and it doesn’t belong in San Jose.
This valley was built on immigrants — gun-wielding settlers “immigrated” onto Ohlone land, getting there quickly by Chinese-built railroads, eating food that was picked by Mexican farmworkers.
People of Chinese descent (and Taiwanese) deserve welcome arms for emigrating to California, searching for education and opportunity, just like our ancestors. They should be enthusiastically welcomed into our great state.
> Trump Tweets “Liberate Michigan” As Gov Says Reopening Could Start May 1
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/michigan-gov-says-state-will-start-reopening-may-1
LIBERATE CALIFORNIA!