Here’s what Fresno’s top health official said about safely reopening local businesses
Amid cries from some city leaders to begin reopening non-essential businesses, Fresno County’s leading health official said the Fresno-area needs more testing to know whether the coronavirus curve is flattening to a safer level.
Councilman Garry Bredefeld and Mike Karbassi support the idea of reopening non-essential businesses. Karbassi, who is a small business owner, suggested Monday at a news conference that the city should reopen businesses by May 7. He said small, non-essential businesses couldn’t compete with the bigger chain stores that have remained open.
“There’s no reason why in my family business, I can’t sell someone an area rug, standing six feet away, disinfecting and wearing a face mask,” Karbassi said.
Speaking Monday afternoon during an online news briefing, Interim Health Director Dr. Rais Vohra said he shares the growing impatience over shuttered businesses.
“It’s not a simple question of ‘when.’ It’s really the larger, harder question of ‘how,’” Vohra said. “I think that’s going to be a different answer for every sector.”
He also said Fresno County still face significant shortages of testing materials.
The debate over relaxing sheltering restrictions escalated Monday as the central San Joaquin Valley reported 80 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. It was the largest single-day jump in Valley cases since the outbreak surfaced in March. In Fresno County, nearly 500 infections have been confirmed.
Vohra said some businesses might need to implement new measures like safety barriers for workers and customers and add more hand sanitizers. In some cases, there may need to be a “fundamental change” to how businesses operate, Vohra said.
He said some businesses that have stayed open have had to overcome some challenges to remain compliant with safety guidelines.
Mayor Lee Brand has also organized a task force made up mainly of elected officials and business leaders to help craft a plan to jump-start the city’s economy once it’s safe to do so. The city’s budget is facing a dip of about $39 million for the rest of this fiscal year and through the next year, according to projections released by city officials last week.
State officials have outlined six ways in which the state and its regions can reopen safely.
The state measures include more testing and isolation of infected persons, preventing vulnerable populations from getting sick, the ability of hospitals to meet a surge of patients, and ways that institutions can implement physical distancing when needed in the future.
Vohra said the county is still waiting on testing supplies to meet the testing step.
“We do want to move from this,” he said. “We recognize that the way things are right now is not sustainable for the long term.”
This story was originally published April 27, 2020 at 7:33 PM.
