More California cities ask Gavin Newsom to loosen his coronavirus stay-at-home order
More California cities and counties are calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to loosen the stay-at-home order he handed down last month so they can begin the process of reopening their communities for business.
But Newsom has warned that the state is not yet safe from the virus.
A number of indicators he’s following increased on Tuesday, including positive tests (7.4 percent), hospitalizations (3.3 percent), intensive care unit visits (3.8 percent) and deaths (5 percent).
“Those numbers went up. They didn’t go down. So I caution those, including local elected officials, that practicing physical distancing has worked to keep those numbers relatively modest in terms of growth. But if we pull back too quickly, those numbers will go through the roof,” he said.
So far, cities from El Dorado County outside Sacramento to the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles have called on Newsom to soften the stay-at-home order:
▪ The Placerville City Council voted on April 14 to send a letter to Newsom, calling on him to lift the order.
“Right now, it’s just a big open question mark,” said Placerville Vice Mayor Dennis Thomas. “And I’m getting really frustrated at how these businesses are being disadvantaged.”
▪ Every mayor in San Luis Obispo County joined two county supervisors and Republican Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham this week in drafting a letter to Newsom, asking him to relax the stay-at-home order.
“Our community has done a fantastic job,” said San Luis Obispo County Emergency Services Director Wade Horton. “You’ve bent the curve. We are ready to move forward.”
▪ Seven out of nine Stanislaus County cities, excluding Patterson and Newman, signed on to a letter to Newsom on Tuesday urging him to loosen the restriction. “One size does not fit all. A reopening process that may fit, and make sense, for the Los Angeles and our neighboring Bay Area regions does not work for our county,” the mayors wrote.
▪ Riverside County has begun to reopen, at least in part. The county is allowing public and private golf courses to reopen, according to the Los Angeles Times.
▪ Ventura County, likewise, has begun a partial reopening. The county is allowing gatherings of up to five people, as well as the opening of parks, golf courses and some businesses, according to NBC Los Angeles.
Newsom said that Wednesday he will release more guidelines for how the state can go about reopening.
“We’ll start laying out some more prescriptive guidelines and update you on the next phase as it relates to iterations in terms of our capacity to begin to loosen up our stay-at-home orders,” Newsom said.
Large counties like Los Angeles and Santa Clara have the most cases, but Newsom stressed that rural ones also are seeing some positive tests. Twenty-two people have died in Tulare County south of Fresno, for instance.
“So if you’re living in a community where you think, ‘Well, we’re immune, we’re OK, we’ve got this. We’re not LA, we’re not some of these other counties in the state of California, I hope you’ll disabuse yourself of that and consider the fact that some of the most challenging parts of the state remain some of our rural parts of our state,” he said.
Newsom said he has received “appropriate queries,” such as from Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties, as well as Placerville, about when the state will loosen its restrictions.
“We’re getting calls, we’re in contact, and we have to continue to be vigilant,” he said.
Newsom said that he is engaged in conversations at the county level about how to go about reopening.
“I imagine there will be some examples of people just getting ahead of that collaborative spirit, we may have to dial a little bit of that back,” he said.
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 5:25 AM with the headline "More California cities ask Gavin Newsom to loosen his coronavirus stay-at-home order."