‘This is the wild Wild West.’ Gavin Newsom says more transparency could imperil mask deal

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration won’t release more information about a nearly $1 billion mask contract for fear that more transparency could jeopardize the shipment of the protective equipment, Newsom said Saturday.

“We are providing as much information as we feel is appropriate,” Newsom said during his daily coronavirus press conference. “We are in desperate need of new masks. We have locked in contracts to procure hundreds of millions and we don’t want to put them in peril.”

Newsom said the deal to buy 200 million masks per month from Chinese company BYD is “locked,” but he pointed to examples of other agreements that were scuttled at the last moment, where goods were stopped at borders before reaching their intended destinations.

As the world scrambles to secure equipment like masks to protect its health workers during the coronavirus pandemic, countries have accused one another of swooping in after deals were made and offering more money, the Associated Press and other media outlets have reported. The U.S. government has been accused of blocking supplies both from other countries and from some American hospitals.

“This is the wild Wild West,” Newsom said. “People competing against one another, things that looked promising, that were locked down, that somehow were stopped at the border, sent back.”

Newsom announced the mask deal last week and has previously expressed confidence that the masks would arrive. When asked April 8 about federal seizures of personal protective equipment, Newsom said he was not concerned that the federal government would interfere, citing a cooperative relationship between California and the Trump administration amid coronavirus.

On Saturday, Newsom promised that his administration would release the “hundreds and hundreds of pages” of the agreement soon so that the public can scrutinize them. In the meantime, he said those seeking more detail about the $1 billion contract are consumed with process while he is more interested in outcome.

The first shipment of masks is due to arrive before the end of April, a spokesman for the governor’s Office of Emergency Services has said.

Normally, governments pay for goods when they receive them, but the BYD contract required nearly half-billion dollars up front. The state wired BYD subsidiary Global Healthcare Product Solutions $495 million on April 10. On Monday, Office of Emergency Services director Mark Ghilarducci said that his office had not yet released the contract because the state was “still in the final negotiation phases.”

When lawmakers pressed for more details at a Thursday oversight hearing, the office’s chief deputy director Christina Curry said the administration won’t release the contract until it has “assurance the supply is going to be arriving.”

An update on homeless aid

Newsom gave his Saturday briefing from outside a Motel 6 in the Santa Clara County that he says is part of a deal the state struck with the motel company to use 47 of its properties to house homeless people.

That’s in addition to 10,974 hotel and motel rooms the state had already secured, Newsom said. About 38 percent are filled, he said.

The agreement with Motel 6 includes the potential for those motels to be used to continue to house homeless people after the pandemic ends, he said.

Newsom announced the state’s plan to shelter homeless people in largely vacant private hotels and motels on March 15 in an effort to protect the vulnerable population from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

So far, 4,211 homeless people have been given rooms, Newsom said. State and local governments are giving priority the elderly, medically vulnerable and people who have tested positive or been exposed to COVID-19.

In response to concerns that the state isn’t getting homeless people into the rooms quickly enough, Newsom said the state has done a lot of work in recent weeks but some local governments are not cooperating. Some cities are blocking the state’s efforts to house homeless people in their communities, he said, using what he described as typical “not in my backyard” arguments.

A January 2019 count estimated 5,570 homeless people were living in Sacramento County, mostly sleeping outdoors and mostly in the city of Sacramento. The county announced yesterday it’s placed 32 homeless households in hotels and three people into trailers.

Research on vaccines and treatments

Newsom has been meeting virtually with biotech companies, researchers, academics and manufacturers in California every week to hear about therapeutic and vaccine trials, he said during a Clinton Foundation event Saturday morning ahead of his news conference in Campbell. During an interview with former President Bill Clinton, he said some of the “most exciting” work on vaccines is being done in California.

But he declined to talk specifics, drawing a contrast between himself and President Donald Trump, who has touted certain treatments for coronavirus that medical experts have publicly cautioned are not fully tested. Some of those drugs have still been approved for use against COVID-19 despite not being fully vetted, such as hydroxychloroquine, a long-established malaria drug.

“It’s an area where we don’t want to overpromise, and we don’t want to start promoting particular products or regimes, but it is an area for some optimism,” Newsom said.

This story was originally published April 18, 2020 at 3:42 PM with the headline "‘This is the wild Wild West.’ Gavin Newsom says more transparency could imperil mask deal."