I know I’m like a broken record, but goddamit New York did it right and everyone else screwed up. California:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —Places of worship, hair salons and other businesses are closing again after Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday rolled back the state’s reopening amid an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
Thirty counties the state is monitoring are now required to close indoor operations for the following:
- Fitness centers
- Places of worship
- Offices for non-critical sectors
- Personal care services
- Hair salons and barbershops
- Malls
Those 30 counties comprise an estimated 80% of California’s population. Among them are Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano, Solano, Stanislaus, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties.
Additionally, Newsom is requiring all California counties to close indoor operations for the following sectors:
- Restaurants
- Wineries
- Movie theaters, family entertainment
- Zoos, museums
- Cardrooms
Our re-opening here was much more fine-grained. Gyms are still closed, non-essential offices are partially closed and every office had to submit a re-opening plan. Hair salons just opened with PPE regs that make them look like half-empty operating theaters. Movie theaters – no fucking way! Cardrooms?!? Casinos in New York just announced massive layoffs because they’re all closed. Indoor dining just resumed here, and my wife and I visited a restaurant that would not seat indoors (not that we wanted to do that — we’re not sitting indoors in a restaurant for the foreseeable future). Malls are opening after upgrading filters in their A/C, which might or might not work, but we’re in Stage 4 at 1-2% transmission, so that might save our bacon if we don’t have superspreaders from other states visiting.
When California shut down, it was obvious to all paying attention that this disease loves the indoors, and that mask wearing is critical to the success of any containment plan. Mask wearing has been pretty good here — even so, Cuomo announced today that he added two new factors to re-opening: the progress of the virus across the nation, and local municipalities’ enforcement of mask and distancing regulations. Clearly, hindsight being 20/20, Newsom should have shut down any county where mask wearing wasn’t happening. And he should have phased the re-opening much more slowly. Because once you clamp back down like this, it just kills the economy, demoralizes people, and spreads fear.
Joe Falco
America will get it right eventually…give or take a few tens of thousands of lives.
Kropacetic
Traditionally once all other options have been exhausted.
dmsilev
Yeah, California reopened too fast and now we’re paying the price. At least Newsom reversed course. Note also that school districts are staying virtual; LA and SD made that announcement this morning.
James E Powell
Los Angeles schools are opening online.
rikyrah
sigh….
close up, California
peej01
I just did a drive from Maryland to Nebraska and it was interesting to see that the prevalence of mask wearing diminished the further west I got. Almost everyone in Maryland was wearing them (the governor mandated them), but you see more people out here who aren’t. Fortunately, most of the people in the grocery store I shop at out here (Nebraska) do have them on. I did have one instance where I parked in the lot of a store, took one look at the people going in who weren’t masked, and just left without getting out of my car.
cliosfanboy
@Joe Falco: so optimistic…..
Patricia Kayden
Elizabelle
Email today from the Mayor of Long Beach, California, Robert Garcia:
Mary G
Better to admit we screwed up and fix it than continue to deny, deny, deny or do something weak, like finally making masks mandatory, like some states I could name
ETA: Also, even in blue CA there are still plenty of Republican assholes, particularly in the OC where I live.
Patricia Kayden
@peej01: The order to wear a mask should have come from the federal government so that it would be nationwide. This is about health and safety. There’s no reason why states should be able to opt out of health-related policies.
TEL
I just read a couple of days ago that one of California’s hotspots – Alameda County – had re-opened places of worship a few weeks ago while everything else is still shut down. This makes no sense to me at all – Newsom’s list of how to re-open has churches as one of the last things to open up since they are a huge source of super-spreader events. I lived in Oakland for over 15 years and I can tell you the churches are a significant part of a lot of communities in Oakland, but I’m still shocked. I’m hoping I mis-read some part of the Alameda County website.
Kelly
Trump calls Biden Sleepy Joe because Americans will be able to sleep again.
https://twitter.com/danielmooch69/status/1282716564781821952
dmsilev
@Mary G: Is the mask situation getting any better in your neck of the woods?
NotMax
Coming soon, from Viral Pictures: If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be
BelgiumBedlam.“If it’s a Viral, it’s worth catching!”
//
Braccio
To be fair, California screwed up the “opening up” part, but New York screwed up the “closing down” part.
Remember, De Blassio wanted a shutdown a week (or more) before it happened. Cuomo refused just it would piss De Blassio off. Thousands more died as a result.
CaseyL
I’m not sure what to make of my state, Washington. We continue to re-open in careful phases, but case numbers are going up again so I don’t understand why Inslee doesn’t pause *everything.*
UW, where I work, just issued its Return to Work program. I’ve been going into the office once a week to deal with a few tasks, and that also happens to be official policy going forward. One person in office each day of the week. One difference is that now we might get visitors (we will keep a log and hand out masks) which I have to say I’m not very keen on.
And I should say, I went out of town this weekend, out to the coast. Where I interacted with human beings, some of whom were not masked. I ate at a restaurant, where they had the tables spread way away from one another, and the waitstaff was masked. I wasn’t when I was eating, but was otherwise. So I was as careful as I could be, but still took chances. Sooo… now I get to see how I feel in 14 days. (Feel fine so far.)
MomSense
This kills me.
24 year old teacher asking about how to draft a will.
https://twitter.com/clapifyoulikeme/status/1282713106683244544?s=21
hoosierspud
Washington has done pretty well. The west side was first in the nation with a known case. They clamped down quickly and it’s been pretty stable. Over here on the east side, we’ve had lower numbers. We moved into phase two and numbers started rising again but are starting to level off. One of the worst spots in the state right now is Yakima county about an hour south and east of Seattle. Also, Kootenai county in Idaho, just a few miles from here is blowing up. I think Inslee and his crew have done a great job.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Mask wearing is a joke around here. Last Thursday, I went out to move my car. My neighbor was out waking his dog, unmasked. Two middle aged women were walking up the street with children, all unmasked. The local gym had folk coming and going, all unmasked. I was the only person wearing a mask!
ETA: I appears that the ONLY WAY to make folk wear masks is coercion, start fining people for not wearing a mask in public.
namekarB
California is a big state and each county is in one of the four stage categories. So don’t be saying this is closed and that is open because it depends upon which stage that county is in. Example Modoc County has ZERO covid cases and is Stage Four reopened. Meanwhile some of the Southern counties are Stage One with everything closed. So be more precise rather than painting all of California with a single broad brush
Mary G
@dmsilev: Don’t know, since I don’t go out, but I did renege on 4th of July plans because the hostess had started going back to daily Mass in person, and she’s the biggest liberal in town. Housemates report beaches are crammed full, and one MAGAt bar and grill that opened before they were allowed to is already fomenting rebellion amongst their clientele and starting a class action lawsuit against Gov. Gav.
Ken
But FREEDUMB! Next you’ll be requiring people to wear CLOTHES in public, or pee into toilets instead of the middle of the street.
(I’m still hoping for some performance artist willing to go there.)
Alison Rose
Proof that while my state isn’t run by idiots, there are plenty of them among the populace. Sigh.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ken:
Yeah, except Baud.
dmsilev
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Interesting. You and I are only a few miles apart, but the situation here is quite different. I’d say well over half of the people out on the street are wearing masks. Certainly not everyone, but most.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Unless the street is crowded, I’m not sure how much difference it makes to wear a mask outdoors. No masks in the gym with even a small crowd is horrific.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Over my dead body.
Felanius Kootea
You really don’t like Newsom do you? California has its share of right wing crazies who will try to do their own things regardless of what the governor says. They had protests against the lockdown (I drove past one in Redondo Beach where no one protesting was wearing a mask), a petition to recall him from office for instituting a lockdown in the first place, and then issued death threats against Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the Los Angeles County Director of Public Health for simply doing her job.
People like Elon Musk decided to reopen their businesses in direct violation of local government orders. So yes, there have been missteps in California because we have a bunch of morons who decided that the fact that we didn’t have New York’s death rate of over 28,000 people means Newsom shouldn’t have instituted a lockdown in March. Now that our death rate has shot past 7,000 and is growing fast, I hope they’re happy. Some people need to literally see the kind of chaos that happened in Queens, New York to agree that they should follow public health orders. I wish we could ship those people off to an otherwise deserted island to infect and reinfect each other, but real life doesn’t work that way.
I’m glad Newsom is shutting everything back down.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: There seems to be resistance among some to the idea of mask wearing.
@Baud: I think it should be a hard and fast rule, if you’re out in public wear a mask, even outdoors. You never know when you’ll have to pass someone and not be able to distance. The only place I’ve not been masked is in my home, in my car, and when I’m shooting in the middle of nowhere.
ETA: I went up north this weekend, I didn’t mask up at Coso, I did wear my mask while shooting in the Alabama Hills and at Whitney Portal.
hotshoe
Here in CA, I am so furious at my sister that I don’t know what to do.
I found out yesterday that she and her husband have returned to church in person. Since their CA county is officially “open”, that’s not quite as immoral as the evangelicals elsewhere who went to church simply to defy the government. But it’s still goddamned stupid! Infuriating and nauseating to me, because now I have to deal with the possibility that Sis is going to infect our frail mother whom Sis sees at least once a week.
I’m ill with fear and anger.
And yeah, she’s the smart one in the family. Educated, lifelong active Dem, social-work for the county …
If people like my sister can’t get this right, our state and our nation have zero hope.
randy khan
Hey, how about some props for New Jersey and Michigan here?
Murphy has been going slow on reopening, including adding a pause at one point, and New Jersey has a case load that is way, way down from the peak and still declining (albeit slowly, but that’s partly because it’s now so low). And the police in one Shore town closed access to the beach over the weekend when it hit capacity, which is exactly what they were supposed to do.
And Michigan seems to be by far the best state outside the Northeast.
cain
@CaseyL:
Our Gov Kate has basically said you’re all going to wear masks – indoors and outdoors (except at home) and no more gatherings of larger than 10 people.
Basically, today she is Iron Fist Kate.
Chetan Murthy
I am *beyond* pissed-off at Newsom. The Idiot. The Idiot. When he *started* talking about reopening, Sara Cody (Santa Clara health director) went on record with “dude, you’re doing this too quickly, you need to wait long enough between each step of reopening so that we can see the effects — otherwise [direct quote] you’re flying blind”. And the other Bay Area health directors? “Nah brah, you go on without is, we’re gonna stand pat”. But then, well, y’know, pressure did its job. Because Newsom wasn’t there to ensure that the anti-maskers met a brick goddamn wall. And Alameda County and Contra Costa reopened. Voila! More cases. More people not obeying masking and social distancing. Fuck.
Meanwhile, my mayor was so fucking pissed-off about people not wearing masks when within 6ft of people, she increased the distance to 30ft (so no fucking way you can be unsure, Covid Karen) and upbraided us all for our laxity.
This is on California. But it’s also on Newsom. On. Newsom. Y’know, when Cuomo was fucking it up, and Newsom was doing well (by following Sara Cody, the other Bay Area health directors, and London Breed), we all thought: “well, he’s kind of a flake, but he’s doing well here: Presidential Timber, eh? Maybe he’ll run in 2024?” But now? Ha. Ha. Fucker fucked it up.
I just hope Cuomo stays the course. And if he does, yeah, he’ll be on the short-list for 2024. And well-earned, despite everything else he’s done and been (which is saying a lot).
Jesus. I *completely* understand that we get the tribunes we deserve. But goddammit, minimal fucking competence in a fucking pandemic isn’t too much to ask for from Dem officials, ffs. ffs. ffs.
catclub
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah, except Baud.
or if you have a mop.
Formica
Sigh. Contra Costa County here. East SF Bay, bordering Alameda County.
Things had been looking up here, locally and regionally, over the last month or so. Infections were low and steady. Masks are ubiquitous; Trumpist mask refusers are shamed and make the news. The lady and I have mused that national reporting needs to separate out Northern and Southern California, because we are really experiencing different scenarios.
But now we’re spiking again, at a rate per day about half of LA county (163 in Contra Costa, 225 in Alameda, per 100k population; versus 353 in LA). It’s not Florida (1178) or Arizona (1672!) but the trend is bad and we are looking at another shutdown.
It’s sad. I was proud of my fellow citizens for bucking up and hunkering down, and proud of my government for doing it right. I hope we didn’t squander that.
Chetan Murthy
@hotshoe:
This is where our public officials need to:
(1) model the right behaviour, consistently and visibly
(2) go slow (it’s a pandemic, ffs)
(3) provide easy-to-understand guidance. This “every county is different” bullshit is just that: bullshit. It confuses people and that increases harm.
Newsom. Newsom.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Felanius Kootea:
I don’t have strong feelings about the guy one way or another. I’m judging by results, and they aren’t looking good.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chetan Murthy: Gov. Gav. was under a lot of pressure from the red parts of the state AS WELL AS THE MEDIA, cut the guy some slack. He noticed things were getting out of hand and responded.
Tulip
This is all so depressing. Oakland Zoo is about to go bankrupt. CA budget is in shambles because their revenue is so tied to sales tax – which probably led directly to re-opening in some places too soon. I agree with BillinGlendaleCA, mask-wearing is really hit or miss. Social distancing is a hit or miss. When I go out, which is rarely (once a week from my home to the office and back) I’d say it’s about 50% in general, though you can see mask-wearing and social distancing for people trying to get into say Trader Joes. It just feels like everything is spiraling out of control and there is no end in sight. And even though it’s been 3 1/2 years I still find myself being outraged/angered at stuff from Trump and his supporters (if you can stomach it, look at Aubrey Huff’s twitter feed).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@catclub: We talking in public here, what Cole does in the privacy of his own home is his business.
E.
CA restaurant (bakery) owner here and I approve of this decision. Since we have only done take-out since this whole thing began, and since we are not a bar, it looks like nothing will change for us. But honestly, if he shut us down too I would applaud. The thing is, he has to shut us all down. It won’t work if I close and my competitors don’t. (And they won’t — not without an enforceable order). Although, I look at our county’s caseload every morning and if the numbers get much higher I will close for the sake of my one remaining employee and myself. Right now this county has only 13 cases, and it’s a big, big county.
Mary G
I may have to take a break from reading the LA Times. It’s just full of horrifying pieces. The latest is
Chance of big San Andreas earthquake increased by Ridgecrest temblors, study suggestsIt only raises the probability from .035% chance to 1.15% chance, so some of it’s just clickbait, and Lucy Jones is saying it’s proven, but still, this timeline…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@download my app in the app store mistermix: You’re not here. Let me tell you what happened, there was a bunch of pressure from several counties(Ventura was one), protests in the OC to reopen. The media covered it this way, “2/3’s of the people say we shouldn’t reopen, but lets spend 5 minutes talking to these fine people for another view”. The health director in the OC had to quit due to death threats.
Formica
@Tulip:
I’m not sure if that’s a reflection on TJ’s bourgeois libtard demographic (my Prius driving, NPR donating white ass included), or the necessity of, say, Dark Russett Potato Chips and cheap Half and Half, or both. ?
namekarB
@Chetan Murthy: I am in totes agreement. Newsom screwed the pooch when he reopened. He opened Pandora’s Box and now we are spiraling out of control. Now we can’t get test results back in less than a week which means the walking infected get to infect more people before we find out their results and quarantine them. Crazy!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: The Garlock fault runs from the San Andreas near Frazier Park up south of Ridgecrest.
Chetan Murthy
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Sorry, no. This is what we elect people for: to make the tough decisions, when lives are on the line. His *job* was to make the tough call. Let me translate your words:
“We can’t expect our elected officials to ever think ahead, to ever work to prevent harm from coming upon us. We can only expect them to shut the barn door after the horse is in the next county.”
Yeah, the OC covidiots were marching. Yeah, the media were on his ass. That’s why he’s *Governor*.
What you’re really saying is: “he didn’t want to risk his re-election by being known as the guy who went too far.” Well, now he’s gonna risk his re-election by being the guy who didn’t do enough.
Fuck. Him.
japa21
Here in Illinois we are doing quite well. Case numbers are going up but it is almost entirely due to increased testing. Northeastern Illinois is the worse with a little over 4% positivity but that is continuing to go down. The state as a whole is around 2.6-2.8%.
Mask wearing inside is mandatory and there is about 98% compliance. Distancing is pretty well maintained as well.
Brookfield Zoo has opened but none of the indoor exhibits are open. If you need to cool off the only place available are the few rest rooms. You need to have a mask on to enter and when around staff. If you are in a group and nobody else is around you can take it off. Mrs. Japa and I went with our local son, DIL and 6 and 3 year old grandsons. Lincoln the 6 year old is very conscious of the need to mask up. We were in an area with no one else around and since it was hot, took our masks off. We rounded a corner and about 20 feet away there was another group walking our way. Lincoln immediately said, “There’s people, we need to put our masks on.”
I have to admit, a lot of people did not follow mask protocol in that situation.
Formica
@Mary G:
For real. I live less than a kilometer from the Hayward Fault, which is well overdue for an “event”. This timeline, as you say.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
Damn.
I’m 71 and I don’t have one.
I keep putting off talking to my cousin, who is my emergency contact.
Eljai
It’s so damn depressing to me that we haven’t been able to get a handle on how to prevent hotspots. I live 11 miles from San Quentin. That’s partly responsible for the rise of cases in my county, but it’s not the only one. A nursing home just had an outbreak with 49 residents testing positive and 17 staff. It was likely brought into the facility by infected staff. How the fuck is this still happening? Last week there was an outbreak at the waste and recycling plant where, it turns out, some people were not wearing masks in the break room. And then there’s a humanitarian crisis happening in the poorer Hispanic / Latin neighborhoods where many are working essential, but low-paying jobs and living in crowded housing situations. I don’t see a way out of this without strict mask enforcement and way more testing. Plus, get PPE to all essential workers, not just medical staff. And, for those positive cases who can’t isolate at home, we’re going to have to provide each a hotel room.
Martin
Good. This was a systemic failure. Too many people fighting to reopen within the state, and no national cover to hold the line against them. So Newsom was caught between a lot of voters and mayors and the president. It was always obvious he didn’t want to reopen. I think he felt he had no choice. Remember Obama’s line ‘make me do it’. That’s what he meant. He needed us who supported his actions to publicly counterbalance those that opposed them. That didn’t really happen here.
Honestly, this would all be pretty trivial if the WH would just take this seriously.
gvg
If there are not people within 6 feet of you outside, you do not need to wear a mask. Don’t freak out over the things that aren’t really supported by science, it undermines your credibility in getting people to go along. Some of you are acting like it’s a religious law.
I do wear a mask outside when I’m walking into work because I can suddenly hit crowds. I do not walking in my neighborhood where I can cross to the otherside of the street if I see someone coming. There aren’t that many people walking and it’s beastly hot and the science does not indicate you need to do it outside when keeping your distance. Of course I have it ready to pull up. Geeze. It also helps if you just stay home a lot.
There are still more important things people are doing wrong like noses above the mask at my doctors office (won’t be back if I can help it)
NotMax
@download my app in the app store mistermix
Well, he was infinitely blander than Doc Severinsen.
:)
Chetan Murthy
Some graphs of Bay Area counties: https://abc7news.com/coronavirus-california-update-santa-clara-county-marin-covid-san-quentin-19/6309351/
(0) that’s cases per 100k people
(1) Look at SF: is that a graph that says you can reopen? NO. 4/100k cases. That’s not safe. And even if you think it was safe, the increase started again on 22 June. That was 3-4 wk ago, and we’re only now locking down? nuts.
(2) Look at Contra Costa? Look at when the increase started. Way back at the beginning of June, it should have been clear that there was a new outbreak.
Saying “oh, but we’re testing more” doesn’t cut it: the point of exponential growth is that you have to stamp it TF out, get down to a really small number of cases, or it’ll break out again where you’re not looking. And without comprehensive surveillance testing, you cannot know that that’s not happening already.
CA should never have reopened. For the record, I’ve been in a not-my-home building once (a store) in the past 2mos — more than a month ago, and I don’t plan to do it again anytime soon.
All of this was known. All of this is what the health directors were saying, months ago.
Hungry Joe
Here in San Diego we’re on double lockdown: The fire from the Navy’s amphibious assault vessel Bonhomme Richard is spewing out god knows what kind of particulates. Hazy; acrid, rubbery, metallic air. We’re about six miles away, and it smells like there’s an electrical supply store on fire three BLOCKS away. Doors and windows closed, A/C on for filtration.
Forecast: sharknado. With LAND SHARKS. Unclear whether that will be before or after the earthquake. Probably during.
Uncle Cosmo
People going out into public spaces have 3 actions at their disposal: Mask, social distance, stay outdoors. Any two of them will substantially reduce their chances of catching Thuh Varss, but at this time of year, staying outdoors is probably the most important – it’s like being in a room with the ceiling a couple hundred feet up where virus-laden droplets will tend to disperse upward. Enclosed spaces with low ceilings dense with crowds not wearing masks are the #1 hazard.
I really think we need to ramp up research on whether there is some mechanism in common to “super spreaders.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: (Rim Shot).
JPL
In case you missed the latest attempt from the trump campaign to discredit Biden it is here. It made me so sad because from the pic you can figure out that Beau isn’t that old and probably lost his mom the previous February. Yeah He had a redskins hat. link
Benw
Just to be pedantic, NY is *doing* it right, nothing past tense yet
E.
@Hungry Joe: Just about time for fire season to get rolling too, here in the North State where I live. Too far inland for sharks and there’s a big mountain in the way but man oh man is it ever dry.
Princess Leia
I noticed on the CA website that protests are also “closed down” in the counties that are shutting down non-essential offices, etc. Not sure how that works.
namekarB
@E.: If Mt Lassen and Mt Shasta stay asleep. If not, have an exit strategy
Mary G
@JPL: He’s deleted it, the blowback was so furious.
Formica
@Chetan Murthy: This is not an attack on you, and I respect your anger.
I think I would probably be less sad and more angry if someone close to me had contracted the virus. As it stands, I have been lucky so far. So I find myself mourning what could have been.
The day the Bay Area lockdown started is burned into my memory like 9/11 or the 1989 earthquake: I remember exactly where I was, listening to the announcement on the radio, the otherworldly feeling that crept over me as I realized this was going to change everything.
And I remember the cautious hope – and later, some survivor’s guilt – watching other cities and states flail and catch fire while we seemingly shut down in time. And the idea that we are squandering that fills me with despair.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
I often follow the USGS website, because I live in socal and well you know. The activity does not seem out of line to me with normal small tremors but it has been a while since a huge one – but. We’ve had a number of over 4.5 in the last year in the major areas of CA and that I believe helps relieve the stress that causes bigger ones. So I’m thinking that we are at, as you stated a rather low probability.
Annie
@Felanius Kootea:
I agree. I’m in San Francisco and In the city we’ve done not too badly, but there were counties pushing back against Newsom’s shutdown order as soon as it was issued. IIRC one of our county sheriffs said he would not enforce the shutdown.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
When went to double check whether his name ended with on or en was surprised to discover Doc’s still kicking; turned 93 last week.
hotshoe
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I understand the pressure from remote-rural counties that really were doing okay (and mostly are still doing okay) that their businesses should stay open / reopen and would be safe. They’re not a huge population, disproportionately loud and selfish, and as you say, amplified by media pressure in their favor.
And letting them be open — officially — helps to calm down the “who’s gonna stop me? who’s gonna make me stay home?” Of course CA never intended to spend state law enforcement resources to enforce shutdowns in the less important places. State pressure wasn’t going to be applied evenly and everywhere.
It’s sorta like speed limits. Where the prevailing traffic speed is way higher than posted limit, it often makes sense to give in and raise the limit, rather than let everyone conclude that they can get away with speeding with no fear of penalty, no matter where.
But, also, just as we collectively decide that there is some unallowable speed, no matter where, we could have collectively decided that there are some unallowable activities, no matter where — and our governor could stand up for that limit when it’s clearly necessary and lifesaving!
Obviously, I think attending church in person should be beyond the limit for anyone.
God will forgive y’all for not sitting in the pews.
egorelick
@Chetan Murthy: Uh, look at the death rates in Alameda County, the Bay Area, and California as a whole. Newsom might have made some mistakes, but to think that the political and public health infrastructure in California has done worse than Cuomo is such a stretch, I’m going to call it a false narrative.
E.
@namekarB: Very good point. I overlooked that. On the other hand, if Shasta blows, there isn’t an exit strategy in the world that will save me. Honestly if I looked up and saw that plume, the first thought in my head would be, “Well, that figures.”
Eunicecycle
@Mary G: well in what universe would a young father snuggling his young son be a bad thing? Someone snarkily said on Twitter that’s why the campaign needed Russian help in the last election: they are bad at this. This guy was supposed to be their “rapid response” leader.
Chetan Murthy
@Formica:
No worries, I wasn’t trying to attack you either. A long while ago, I gave up trusting any politician, and decided that I would only/only/ONLY listen to the health directors. That hasn’t failed me so far. FWIW (knock wood) I know nobody who’s actually been infected. But really, that’s not the point (for me). We’re all living in mortal fear, and not just for ourselves and our family, but for our neighbors, the people we interact with (my postman, a lovely man, has to come all the way in from Pittsburg (far East Bay) to deliver my mail), etc. It’s a travesty that Newsom didn’t follow the advice of health directors.
And I wanna say again: to argue that “he was stuck in a hard place b/c of covidiots and the media” is to say that he’s justified in putting his re-election and political future on a bet where the stakes include the lives of his constituents.
Well, he did it, and he lost that best. Time to make him pay up the next time he stands for office, *anywhere*. *Anywhere*.
Uncle Cosmo
@JPL: Anyone who thinks a photo like that is going to discredit Biden because little Beau is wearing a Redskins toboggan cap has long ago torn up his (or her) membership card in the human race & burned her (or his) card alleging s/he belongs to a sentient species.
Ken
Odd how the memory works…
… and I immediately think of the novel Alas, Babylon which I haven’t read in forty years. It’s set after a nuclear war, and in one scene an adult is listening to a couple of kids playing. One of the kids says, “Well, if I grow up…” and the adult is struck by the “if”.
Whereas…
… and I suddenly remember the second Planet of the Apes movie from the 70s, with the (SPOILER WARNING) mutant religious service. “I reveal my inmost self unto my God, the Bomb…” (END SPOILER)
Though if the pandemic lasts long enough, mask-wearing might become a religious law, because the surviving tribes are all descended from people like Lincoln.
NotMax
@Eunicecycle
The Death Star was a no snuggling zone.
//
Chetan Murthy
@egorelick: NY state had how many deaths yesterday? FIVE. CA? SIXTY-NINE. The Bay Area? six-and-change. But that’s not how you decide whether to reopen (it’s a lagging indicator by *weeks*). It’s cases, and we’re nowhere near where NYS or the NYC area is, on cases.
And YES, Cuomo fucked-up early-on. But since he’s recovered, and he’s not making that mistake again (at least, not yet, knock wood).
James E Powell
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m in SW Riverside County – Trump Country – and the majority of people around here stopped wearing masks around Memorial Day weekend.
Drdavechemist
@NotMax: So that sent me down a rabbit hole looking for recollections about Tommy Newsom on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson et al. Saw Doc Sevrinsen live at the Cleveland Playhouse probably sometime around 1980-fun show, and he was a great trumpet player.
namekarB
@E.: I was staying in Mt. Shasta City when the earthquake in ’93 hit Klamath Falls. It jolted pretty good and I thought “Wow, that was something.” Then it dawned on me that I was at the base of a volcano so ran outside in my underwear and looked North, Whew, no lava spew, so went back to bed.
Eunicecycle
@NotMax: yeah you’re right. Darth Vader wasn’t much of a snuggler! No pictures of him holding Luke.
Ken
May I respectfully suggest that the effort be confined to the primary, and if Newsom wins the nomination you hold your nose and vote for him? Especially if the alternative is a full-on Death Cult Republican who gets his news from QAnon and thinks COVID is a hoax to microchip everyone.
Or Devin Nunes, but I repeat myself.
Chetan Murthy
@egorelick: Maybe you’re saying “we’re doing so much better than SoCal”. That’s not the right comparison. The right comparison is Germany, or France, or Denmark. Because we need to get to where it’s safe to reopen.
I’m not being OCD about this. I WANT TO REOPEN. I want my life back. And I know that we can’t do that, until it’s actually safe. And this idea that “it’s safer here than in LA” is bunk. Completely bunk. The right measure is whether it’s safe, PERIOD. And it’s not safe. It wasn’t safe when Newsom reopened, not safe when Newsom *planned* to reopen. And not safe at any time during the reopening period.
What was that about marriage? “The triumph of hope over experience”. Well, that’s what Newsom’s reopening was.
He should have fallen on his fucking sword over this.
It. Was. His. Responsibility.
And if he’d done so, and we were still closed, he’d look like a goddamn hero today. A goddamn hero.
Alison Rose
@Annie: That was my illustrious sheriff here in Sonoma County. Or he was one of them, at least. A small group of us have been talking about organizing a recall effort against him. He sort of backpedaled then un-backpedaled then maybe-backpedaled again?? I don’t even know.
E.
@Chetan Murthy: I don’t think Newsom is all that but I think, on balance, he’s doing a much better job than most. Let’s not forget that population-wise, CA is doing much better than most. TN (a state I follow closely) has 3,300 new cases today. Adjusted for population that would require CA to hit 20,000 cases to match them. Now, just because we are doing better than TN doesn’t make Newsom a great governor, but he’s coming to work every day, he’s paying attention, and he’s taking actions that most others aren’t. I am pretty disappointed he hasn’t done more but there are limits to everyone’s political capital.
The Moar You Know
June and 13 days later and it’s the disaster I said it would be on June 1, when they “reopened” the state.
June 1 I took a drive up 101 here by the beach and saw every restaurant at 120% capacity, no masks, no distancing, no nothing, came home and told my wife I’d just seen the scariest thing I’d ever witnessed. We both took the drive a few days later. It was worse.
If people and businesses aren’t going to change their behavior I don’t know what the fuck to do, unless the goal is to drive us all back to a medieval society where everyone dies of the “sweating sickness” by age 35, because that’s going to be where we end up. If that was the goal, someone please send me a copy of the memo as I did not get it.
Chetan Murthy
@Ken:
Of course. It goes without saying for me, but it’s good you reiterated it. Yeah: I’ll hold my nose and vote for him if I must. But in any primary, this is the number-one issue for me. When the chips were down, he ran. Gavin “Brave Sir Robin” Newsom.
Steeplejack
@hotshoe:
Is your sister wearing a mask in church?
NotMax
@hotshoe
One dilemma being that counties are not closed systems.
To paraphrase Field of Dreams, “If you open it they will come.”
namekarB
@Chetan Murthy:
That is my plan. Been voting against Dianne Feinstein in primaries every time she runs.
Alison Rose
Ugh, Guest’s follow-up tweet (which he also deleted) was even more repugnant. I swear, Republicans literally have no souls.
Kattails
Just musing on Cuomo’s talk, which I listened to in its entirety, although I’m in NH. At my desk working, but was remembering his theme: “New York tough. Smart, united, disciplined, and loving.”
I wrote it down. That’s it, seven words, perfect. Thought I’d drop that in and run off again…
Chetan Murthy
@E.:
This is a dangerous and pernicious idea. On two counts:
(1) you don’t judge (whether it’s safe to reopen) in comparison to the rest of the country: that’s a mistake, because the rest of the country is ALSO on fire. Instead you judge whether it’s safe to reopen, on whether it’s safe to reopen, and that’s a scientific standard, period.
(2) The rate of infection here was never low enough to call the disease suppressed. We reopened basically on the HOPE that the curve would continue down. And then (again, to quote Sara Cody) we didn’t do it slowly enough, that we could -measure- whether the rate was continuing down. And guess what? It started back up, and WEEKS AGO, not merely “last week”. WEEKS AGO.
(3) This isn’t how you deal with epidemics. It is by now a well-repeated phrase: “if you’re doing epidemic suppression it right, you’re going to be accused of overdoing it”. Every epidemiologist says this, and they’ve been shouting it to the heavens all these last few months.
This was preventable. This was foreseen. He fucked up.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chetan Murthy:
No, you’re wrong. Germany, France, and Denmark have function national governments, we don’t. So a comparison between states would be a more valid comparison since the national government is the same.
namekarB
All most idiots and business’ heard was “Reopen” and immediately believed the pandemic had ended.
Ivan X
@hotshoe: My 13 year old niece had returned to gymnastics in CA. My brother and his wife, both smart, mainstream, normal liberal types, when I asked them about it, said that they wished the government would shut them down again. I don’t get it. It was like they had no agency about it; I think they just didn’t want to sadden her. They’d also been getting together with occasional friends and their families, and let her older sister take a babysitting job. We made the painful decision to extend our social distancing to exclude them (we had been distancing together when this started), and it’s much lonelier for us now.
I think that this kind of thing is just going to get worse and worse. Even the better people are going to have their weaknesses, make excuses to themselves about why it’s ok, and endanger everyone else, and prolong this nightmare. I wonder if I’ll reach a breaking point (or maybe just a casual corruption point), too, since it seems to happen to people that I wouldn’t expect it from.
Chetan Murthy
I want to note something else that EVERY governor seems to still be clueless on: They’re still all relying on commercial labs for testing. NOWHERE have I seen any effort to organize the academic and industrial research labs to increase testing capacity. We’ve had FOUR MONTH and we’re still relying on Quest Diagnostics for all our testing. By contrast, Germany got their testing ramped-up by precisely organizing all the existing PCR machines, wherever they were.
And BTW, a guy who runs a research institute offered to do tests for free: hospitals turned him down b/c he didn’t have EPIC (the EHR system) compatibility and so they couldn’t connect medical records and (ding ding ding DING) bill for the services.
Jesus. This is something we should have had organized by now. And again, the fucking governors are falling down on this.
Brachiator
@Chetan Murthy:
I don’t get it. Who would you vote for instead among the gaggle of idiots in the CA state legislature.
We should be eternally grateful that we had Jerry Brown again, and Newsom is doing a pretty good job.
I do recall when there was a big CA budget surplus and the legislature said “Spend it! Spend it all right now!” and Brown insisted on a rainy day fund. And dopes said that we would never need a big rainy day fund. For anything. Ever. Because nothing catastrophic would likely happen in California.
And a lot of our pandemic problems are due to right wing nut jobs who insisted on defying Newsom.
But we will get through this. We have some good state a local officials in place.
JaneE
The freedumb brigades in CA were threatening all the local public health officials who made masks mandatory. Yeah, we should have had an evaluation after each step and called a halt a lot sooner, but the state did have rules. And nobody followed them, and a whole lot of people openly defied them. Much of our problem is because there are a certain number who just will not follow any rules, just because.
So far my county (the one I live in most) is not on the watch list. Positives are almost down to 1% and the number of tests is way up. My water aerobics class is re-starting tonight. Instead of changing in the dressing room I will be wrapping in a robe and driving home in a wet bathing suit. How well that works is TBD.
Chetan Murthy
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes, Germany, France, etc have functional national governments. How does that affect when it’s safe to reopen? Because my daddy beats me, is it OK for me to drink and drive? I mean, that’s ridiculous.
The criterion of safety is *independent* of government, of competence, of … anything other than what the virus does.
Again, you’re excusing his cravenly placing his electoral fortunes over the lives of his constituents.
Ksmiami
@MomSense: I got into a huge argument with my Republican but Hates Trump neighbor because he’s afraid of the Democratic Party having complete control (a myth) and I told him it sounded much better than the dystopian life the GOP has consigned the country to…
Chetan Murthy
@Brachiator:
I’m sure you can see the inconsistency here. But really, it doesn’t matter: he going to cost thousands of Californians their lives, and many more thousands crippling injuries.
NotMax
Hawaii’s Gov. Ige, along with Lt. Gov. Green, have been doing okay, although it has been two steps forward, one step back more often than I would have preferred.
21 new cases statewide reported over the past weekend (19 of those on Oahu), which for us is a Big Jump as the state is still under 1000 reported cases total – and ought to act as a big red flashing WARNING! GO SLOW sign.
Barbara
@Chetan Murthy: Whether we like it or not, even a state as large as California is hamstrung by failure at the federal level. There are things Newsom should have done — keeping bars closed seems to be the minimum — but, for instance, even he can’t keep borders to other states closed, not really. And he certainly can’t issue a state specific currency. He can’t even redirect federal funds in a way to achieve higher state priorities.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy:
Dude. Governors aren’t presidents. They don’t have remotely the powers needed to solve this. I know you’re angry, but the failure is 100% at the federal level. Governors are trying to navigate this chaotic minefield which they can’t possibly succeed at long term.
Part of the problem down here in SoCal is we’re getting loads of cases from Arizona because we still have ICU capacity and they have none, and because it’s easier for them to drive to CA and get a test than it is to get one in AZ. This country will be an exercise in rearranging the deck chairs until the feds step in and act.
Every time you blame Newsom you give Trump a pass on this. It’s completely counterproductive.
FelonyGovt
I’m actually kind of relieved by Newsom’s order. I’m an arbitrator and I have a scheduled hearing that is supposed to happen during the week of August 17, in-person in Los Angeles. The parties have been very resistant to holding it via Zoom (even though I’ve now successfully conducted 2 arbitration hearings (one for 5 days) via Zoom). Now there won’t be any issue.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chetan Murthy: Wow, picked up the goalpost and left the field with it. I was pointing out that comparisons within a country would be more valid, you’re just ranting.
ChrisS
New York has huge numbers early on because they/we were inoculated at a higher rate than any other state and there was zero testing going. It was a uncontrolled virus free for all.
there should be no excuse for states in July.
cain
Look – every governor has been opening up – because they need funds to run the state. I can understand that.
But now we need to go back to what we were doing before. Americans will fall in line if they are basically told that this is an order and STFU.
Our problem is that we have a party and a federal govt that is anchorless and floating all over the place. We need federal support and we are not going to get it.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: UC tried to serve as a lab capacity as well. Newsom supported it. The problem though is that there isn’t a national test. There’s dozens of tests, many proprietary to the labs that designed them. Logistically we couldn’t pull it off, in part because the state is having to do all of the federal work as well, and they just can’t do everything. So this is then a problem compounded by having such a shitty national health care infrastructure. Newsom just before the pandemic announced a plan for a state-run generic drug manufacturing operation because of this very problem.
And what’s more, states can’t deficit spend, so they are required to balance budgets at the worst possible time. That’s why the feds are needed. They can throw resources at this, the state cannot. That was sort of the whole point to that work back in 1789. They even made a musical about it.
We’re planning on using our labs to test our own population. Take that load off of the state, handle our own logistics.
The Moar You Know
@Chetan Murthy: I have never liked Newsom. Voted for Peace and Freedom party instead of him when he ran, wasn’t going to matter as he was going to win anyway. Probably do it again. Integrity matters and he’s never had any.
That being said, this isn’t his fault. Refer to my post above. The day anyone gave the citizenry a little bit of wiggle room we Californians rose as one and said “fuck it, I’m not doing this anymore”.
I blame everyone, pretty much, but there’s one group of people who really need a lot more blame than others: California restaurant owners. Some followed the law. Most didn’t even try.
kindness
I don’t think California re-opened too fast. I think Californians stopped wearing their masks too fast. Really that made the big difference. When we first started to re-opened in early May people were pretty uniformly wearing masks. Within a couple weeks almost no one was wearing masks. I mean I continued to but I’m a loner by nature anyhow so….
Newsom isn’t the problem. He’s actually been pretty good. I’m not shocked at so many here who seem to like to shit on him. Meh. What ever.
Chyron HR
Yeah, once we get rid of
Nancy PelosiGavin Newsom, all of America’s problems will be solved.Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
What I see are a lot of people being very half-assed about wearing masks outside. They’ll wear their mask around their chin or dangling from one ear and then think about putting it on if someone walks near them. A lot of the people who are wearing masks are letting their noses poke out or even wearing them so loose you can see their mouths. Or they’ll pull their mask down when they’re talking.
Restaurants are not being very good, either. Their tables look closer together than they should be, and they’re often encroaching on the sidewalk so people can’t keep their distance if they’re walking past. One place has a big tent for their outdoor dining, which basically turns it back into indoor dining since they don’t get the air flow they need.
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I always wear a mask on my weekly errand run. When walking around the neighborhood, I avoid people rather than masking up. Pretty easy to cross over to the other side of the street; it’s just not that crowded.
If i lived in NYC, I’d wear a mask anytime I were to leave my home.
Chetan Murthy
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Again: the question isn’t “is CA doing better than TX?” It is “when is the right time to reopen?”
IDGAF whether we’re doing better or worse than TX. That doesn’t help me to be able to walk outside my house without fearing for my life. You ought not to GAF either. You should only care whether it’s safe to reopen. And. It. Was. Not. Safe.
All the rest is bullshit. All the rest is bullshit.
And let me note AGAIN that if he’d stayed the course, it’s highly like that by NOW it *would* be ACTUALLY safe to reopen. In a manner similar to Trump, he screwed the pooch, turned what could have been something great (for him, but also for us) into ashes.
The Moar You Know
@Hungry Joe: You can smell it in Carlsbad and Poway’s high valley. Easily 20+ miles away. I don’t know what the fuck is burning on that thing but it is some bad, bad shit. And yeah, I thought it had to be a local house fire. I just two days ago put carbon filters on the house A/C. Glad I did. Glad I put the A/C in only last year, for that matter.
E.
@Chetan Murthy: You are pretending I made a different argument than I did. I did not say it was a good idea for CA to open when it did because we were doing better, population-wise, than other states. I said your full-throated criticism of Newsom was misplaced because, on balance, he’s been more aggressive than just about every other governor, and pointed to our numbers as evidence.
Everyone is new at this. I agree this country is on fire and, if I don’t sound it, I am terrified. I am concerned about my life, my employees’ lives, and my business, which I put most of my life savings into 18 months ago, and which is tanking. I’m not going to be immediately destitute if it fails, but I will definitely be on that trajectory, and at 55 I’m not readily employable. Now calm tf down and work on solutions instead of raging at a governor who is head and shoulders better than most. We don’t even understand some of the basic science of this virus. It may be far deadlier than we think. The path forward is not to rage at Newsom, it’s to install a functioning federal government.
debbie
@cain:
Here, there’s about to be a huge fight over local taxes. Most people pay taxes where they work and then also where they live. Since they have been working remotely, people feel they shouldn’t have to pay taxes for where their job was since they haven’t been there. If they were to win, the city would have a huge deficit.
I don’t disagree with them, but if I just paid taxes in my municipality, I think I’d be paying more.
Just one more mess to contend with.
MattF
Yes, I link often to Dahlia Lithwick’s Slate columns. She just insists on thinking things through, and I find that irresistible. In this one, she figures out what Mary Trump is doing in her book and why Mary’s book is different from all those other books about Donald. Very much worth reading.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Martin:
I was on a call after I wrote this post, so I missed the back-and-forth here, but I have to disagree somewhat with this take. Your general point is right – lack of federal leadership is killing us. But – in New York, we saw that Trump was going to be useless, so we built our own capacity. 2/3 of New York state tests are processed by private and public labs in New York. Hospitals must have 90 day stockpiles of PPE at their tip-top burn rate. Local companies are making different types of PPE like face shields. The NY DoH grouped together public and private hospitals so share beds to offload overloaded hospitals. The list of executive action and fact-based response to the crisis is too long to mention or even for me to remember.
New York and California are the richest and biggest blue states — and California has massive resources even when compared to New York. Why didn’t Newsom see the writing on the wall as Cuomo did and ramp up? Yes, it’s Trump’s fault that we’re all fucked, but if you’re in an environment where you’re fucked, you have to do your best to unfuck with the resources available to you.
The governor of New York has immense power when it comes to a public health emergency, and he’s not afraid to use it. He also has massive resources, like (in practice) his own army (state troopers and national guard), a world-class research lab (Wadsworth labs at the DoH) and absolutely sweeping executive powers. These powers can only be checked by the legislature, and they just got the hell out of the way, as I’d expect CA’s leg to do.
That’s why I’m puzzled about the current situation in CA.
Baud
@Ksmiami:
He doesn’t understand us very well. We don’t even have complete control over our own party.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud: It appears some municipalities require masks whenever out and about including walking a dog at distance from others. In Denver, it has varied widely…sometimes about 1/2 of the people out walking and cycling are masked, sometimes just one or two are. The groceries have good compliance but I have seen one or two people unmasked. Employees too. That’s ridiculous!
Ken
Ah, then I should push ahead with my release of the self-replicating death-drones that target people without masks.
(“Oh, sure, I’m the mad scientist, but COVID does the same thing and everyone’s all ‘price of freedom’ and ‘have to reopen the economy’…”)
MisterForkbeard
@Chetan Murthy: I disagreed with Gavin’s decision to open, but I understand where it came from.
Just like you said that the local health authorities needed cover from Gavin Newsom, he needed cover from the Feds. And Trump was pushing opening really hard and had been for over 6 weeks. It was getting hard to sustain a slow-walk or slow opening in the face of that and it was only going to get worse. I think he would have had a lot of local pushback if he hadn’t done what he did – even in the Bay Area our local Sheriff was publicly and loudly disobeying health orders in mid-June, and that was after the limited re-openings.
It didn’t help that Trump muzzled the CDC and kept them from helping. Newsom probably knew that opening was a really bad idea but that California hadn’t had enough of an outbreak and people weren’t scared enough to let him do it.
So while I wish he’d done differently, I really do blame Trump, the Republicans and Fox for California fucking up. It’s really hard to fight a headwind. I DO blame Newsom for not doing this closing up 2-3 weeks ago when it was clear that it wasn’t working.
cain
@debbie:
We are definitely going to see some budget fights going forward. Congress should basically fund all the states and call it good. But that isnt going to happen because Republicans are suddenly fiscally conservative – such a joke.
Chetan Murthy
OK, I’ll stop bitching about this [read the room, Chet] But I’ll leave you with these three points:
(1) was it safe? No, it was not safe. How do we know? Because we’re back in the middle of the damn uncontrolled wildfire, that’s how we know.
(2) was it predicted as being unsafe? Yes, all the health directors said “don’t do this” and they did so publicly.
Excusing his behaviour is bullshit, unless he actually resigned as a result. Anything else is insufficient effort. Unless you think that the thousands of lives taken and degraded, are less important than him continuing in office.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Worth keeping in mind the Alameda county horror story is four people dead in one day. That’s not the next Arizona but it is something that needs to be fixed.
I don’t buy the testing argument, just assume you are a carrier until proven otherwise. One of the nasty thing about the virus how many people get it and show no symptoms, except for the unlucky few who end up going threw hell.
We do need more masks.
Brachiator
@Chetan Murthy:
I was being kind, but I mainly meant those who are doing a good job with respect to the pandemic. And I include Newsom here despite some of his stumbles.
The major responsibility for anything bad that happens is with Trump and his stupidity and incompetence.
And after that I would throw in those who foolishly defied the guidance on how to deal with this thing.
Roger Moore
@Formica:
Trader Joe’s seems to be the only grocery store near me that’s making any effort to limit the number of people in the place. People are lining up because the store makes them line up (and sanitize their hands before entering). And honestly, it makes prefer them to the other places because the other places seem dangerously lax.
Matt McIrvin
Paul Campos on LGM: WASF, nothing matters, America is dying, we’d be as bad under Hillary as Trump.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore:
Actually, I have to do that with my new neighbor, they’re deaf.
VeniceRiley
@E.: If you do shippable things, E, where do we order?
Do you do any keto or near keto? I’m spending a ton on lower or low carb tortillas and pasts and pizza crusts and such. I’d kill if someone cracked the code for an excellent keto bread
MisterForkbeard
@Chetan Murthy:
I have yet to go through the rest of the thread, but it wasn’t just the media. I have (mostly HAD at the point) conservative friends who were literally talking about armed rebellion if the lockdown continued. I had mostly sensible liberal work friends who were convinced that the national guard checkpoints on highway 1 were the prelude to martial law. I know a restaurant owner who approvingly told me he ‘knew some people’ who were going to go to Sacramento and take a shot at Newsom if he didn’t relax things soon.
I don’t think it was a case of being afraid of re-election. I think it was a case of knowing that unless he was going to use state force hard then the continued lockdown was largely unenforceable and was going to destroy his ability to deal with it at all. He really did need cover from the media and from Trump, because staying closed was a generally unpopular decision.
He didn’t get either and had to re-open. But again, I blame him for not seeing the writing on the way and backing up 2-3 weeks ago when the numbers were really clear that the opening wasn’t working.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: I live in the LA basin, so I mask up to take a walk, or even walk out to my car.
dmsilev
@Roger Moore: The Whole Foods near me also does ‘wait outside’, but most times there’s no line because it’s a pretty big store and whatever threshold they’re using for customer density hasn’t been hit. The regular supermarkets don’t seem to have any provisions for lines.
debbie
@MattF:
Wow.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
We should have voted for John Chiang. We could have had the boring but extremely competent guy, but we had to go for colorful instead. ETA: Yes, I’m still bitter my guy didn’t win in 2018.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@download my app in the app store mistermix: You are certainly aware that California is not New York and we have a different state constitution.
Matt McIrvin
The basic difficulty is that to really kill this thing, we have to get people to behave as if they’re in a plague zone even when the general infection level is low enough that the personal danger to them is, at that moment, fairly low. That’s incredibly hard to convey, especially after decades of virtue-of-selfishness libertarian indoctrination and when people don’t understand statistics and probability in the first place.
Ken
I’m not so sure the President has the necessary powers, but I hope I’m wrong. Hopefully in about six months we’ll have a President who will exercise those powers.
(I suppose it would help if Biden uses the special previously-unsuspected powers Trump and Barr found, like redirecting allocated funds to other projects. For example, take any remnant “wall” funding and spend it on testing.)
MisterForkbeard
@download my app in the app store mistermix: A big problem is that Cuomo was able to do a lot because the problem was so bad in New York.
Newsom acted early and California never hit disaster levels. As a result he didn’t have the same political capital that Cuomo did. There’s more he could have done, but there was massive resistance to the measures he took, and Trump and Fox was doing their best to actively encourage disobedience and anger. The media in general was doing a “other states are opening, why can’t we” schtick.
Holding firm (or expanding control and resources) wasn’t particularly on the menu. Newsom didn’t have the backing to do it. It wouldn’t have worked.
namekarB
I am pretty pissed off at Newsom also but yeah, you are right. In my world we would bring the hammer down on maskless zombies spewing covid cooties on everyone. Also in my world we would bring the hammer down on a business that willingly allows those same maskless zombies through its doors and then serves them.
Yeah, in my world I would also be rich and live on an island
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: I liked Chiang too.
Dan B
@hoosierspud: Speaking of central and eastern WA three counties: Yakima, Benton (hi Yutsano!), and Franklin, combined population just ove half a million, have 12,860 cases. King county, population 2.25 million has 11,825. Cases are creeping up in King but soaring in the Yakima, Tri-Cities areas. The main cause seems to be latinx and immigrant workers in food processing plants. That and a right wing white controlled government even in high minority Yakima. The government and the businesses hate Inslee. When it spreads to the white people there may be changes.
MisterForkbeard
@Matt McIrvin: To be fair, I agree that Hillary would have been enormously hobbled by Republicans and Red Staters in general. I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if we had had to deploy the national guard in some locations.
Disagree that we would have been in the same spot. Blue states would have been much better off and the federal response would have been good. Overall we’d have a patchwork of well-off states and a few hellscapes dotting the country, as opposed to our current “everything sucks except for New York”.
I do agree that the nation is fucking disfunctional because of the 40% of the citizenry that’s batshit crazy, proud of it, and nearly immune to discussion because they won’t listen to anything on their pre-approved authoritarian media list. It’s recoverable, but that is a long slog.
Roger Moore
@MisterForkbeard:
Just to expand on this, since the pandemic began, the health directors for Nevada, San Benito, Yolo, Butte, Orange, and San Bernardion have quit at least in part because of threats against them. In Orange County, there were public death threats, and the sheriff publicly refused to enforce a mask order.
Geoduck
@hoosierspud: My SW Washington county just had a large uptick by local standards: 25 new cases. I’m pretty much housebound except for trips to the grocery store and doctor appointments, so I don’t know how well people are doing with masks generally, but when I visited the store today, for the first time every single person I saw inside was wearing a mask. (It’s been about 80-90% on previous trips.) Not helping matters is the county sheriff who has gone into full My Freedumbs mode.
Ken
@MisterForkbeard: I’ve seen that argument before – that often people aren’t willing to take the necessary steps until they’ve been through a runaway phase with near-collapse of the health system. It’s not universal, obviously; see Vietnam for one.
It reminds me of a related argument about the anti-vax movement. In the US, current parents are two generations removed from the last major epidemics of measles, rubella, or polio. So they have no idea how bad they were.
Matt McIrvin
@MisterForkbeard: I think the Northeast would have been better off without the Trump administration STEALING THEIR DOCTORS’ PPE during the first wave!
namekarB
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
He got my vote in the primary
divF
@MisterForkbeard: My feeling is that, in retrospect, California would have had the same outcome. There is a large contingent in this state who suffer from various flavors of “You’re not the boss of me!”. They were not going to comply no matter what, and we would have had the same growth in cases (Newsom was not going to call in the National Guard to enforce wearing masks). At least now, there is a chance that people can see a clear causal relationship between reopening and exponential growth in cases, whereas if Newsom had tried to shut down and failed, the idiots would have said that “shutting down has no impact, so why trash the economy”.
In response to another discussion here, I live in Berkeley, and according to the USGS, the Hayward fault runs under my house.
Barbara
@download my app in the app store mistermix: Cuomo got religion only after the city had spun out of control. The net losses in NYC are going to be greater than in California. Yes, it was novel, and that is an explanation no one has anymore, but it is not fair to say Cuomo was immune to political pressure.
MisterForkbeard
@Ken: Yeah. It’s definitely not universal. It helps when there’s recent memory of an epidemic, people are used to helping out for the common good, and when your leadership and experts are all on the same page.
In this case the experts all agreed, but leadership was divided. We’ve also been away from epidemics for some time, and there’s an entire political party who’s entire point (besides ‘fuck minorities’) is “I got mine, fuck you” and “I hate Democrats”.
If our leaders had been on the same page and pushing solidarity for the common good, we could have done it. Now we have to suffer through disasters before people will actually pay attention and local/state leaders have the capital to make those decisions.
MisterForkbeard
@divF: I think our outcome would have been a bit better if he hadn’t opened when he did, but I don’t honestly think he could have waited much longer. It wasn’t enforceable without broad public buy-in and he was losing it – and in some places, never had it.
I do think he could have shut down indoor dining and bars much earlier, though. Or never opened that up at all. Could potentially have gotten away with that.
namekarB
Do you know any railroaders?
namekarB
@MisterForkbeard: Many people only heard “reopen” and hit the bars and restaurants. Then you have the “no boss of me” libertarians and the young immortal fools. I don’t think the messaging of why masks are important got through to those who needed to hear it.
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Interestingly, in our county the big bump in infections has been primarily from large family gatherings. IDK if they were packing into nail salons or somesuch.
laura
@Brachiator: Yeah, we could have elected Travis Allen, full bore MAGA trump ball-gargler. He’d surely have put science over politics and pressure. Not.
So Gavin Newsom’s not saved us all from all the rest of us. Neither has our federal government. I save my cup of bitterness for a more worthy target.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
From LGM:
This is just nonsense. I see the Bernie-bros using similar “logic” to whip themselves into a “Biden/Trump/Hillary all the same” frenzy.
It’s tiresome as hell.
Eljai
@Brachiator: Agree. And I’m pretty sure Hillary would not have dismantled Obama’s pandemic task force right after being inaugurated.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Community spread. Separate households coming together, meeting at someone’s home, a picnic, or other gathering. It has been sad.
A guy on a arts podcast mentioned that a friend of his had been to two different parties, held indoors the previous day and evening and was going to another party that day. He was calling to remind the show host that he was coming to his house tomorrow for an gathering in the front yard. The host said “no, you are not coming over.”
This guy had moved among three different groups of families and friends, where everyone believed that masks were not necessary. Lots of close contact, talking and hugging.
Lots of opportunities to spread the virus around.
And the host had a parent with underlying conditions and needed to be cautious.
A lot of the news is about bars and restaurants. But this is not where all the hot spots are.
divF
@namekarB: no, I don’t. But I’ve long been a big fan of the Tilden park steam train. Back in my babysitting days I used to take the youngsters up to ride on it, much to their delight (and mine).
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
I suspect going back to visiting friends and family without masks has been a more important contributor to the recent outbreak than anyone wants to admit.
Ruckus
@Ken:
No kidding. I had to write responses to the jackass republican who came in to run for CA gov last time. I used my navy voice because this ass was a trumper moron. I’m thinking that I was not alone in my responses to his dumb ass because after my second response (He did sound like a slow learner) the message was from supposedly from his wife, chiding us about how great a human he is. I responded with the big gun language for that third response. I believe I may have outdone myself, I never heard another word. He lost rather handily. And I agree that Newsom, while not necessarily handling this the way I would have liked was under a tremendous amount of pressure from segments and populations of the state.
prostratedragon
@Chetan Murthy: Contact tracing also. Very disturbing to me.
TEL
@Eljai: I live in one of those poorer areas with an outbreak. On the canal side, it’s like it’s a different world – we’re all masked up and taking major precautions, but we also have the ability to work from home and be careful. The other side the apartments are crowded with people, and a lot of those folks have to do pick-up work in lousy conditions to survive.
Eljai
@TEL: I may have a co-worker friend who lives near you. Yes, it’s a whole different ballgame for those of us who are fortunate enough to work from home.
Jinchi
To be clear, New York screwed up too, and had the misfortune to be hit hardest, first. San Francisco could easily have been ground zero if not for the foresight of their mayor.
That’s not an excuse for the rest of the country to not learn from their mistakes and prepare for the spread of the pandemic, but let’s not rewrite history.
namekarB
@divF: I lost touch with a fellow S.P employee who lives in Berkeley (I’m in Roseville). He used to post on various platforms (Charlie Pierce etc) so I was just hoping against hope
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Yep. In the UK they tried to have guidelines that limited the number of people and number of different households you could visit. I don’t know how successful it was, and I am not exactly sure how closely we tried to duplicate that advice here. But I know that here in California some cases of spread, and fatalities, were definitely linked to families and friends getting together after lockdown.
I remember hearing a woman scientist talk about “banking” her quarantine time and then using it to arrange a visit with two friends who also had been in quarantine for x number of days. They met outside and wore masks. But I know people who had indoor gatherings and felt that it was okay not to wear masks around friends.
glc
@Braccio: That’s the polite version (or maybe just the concise version).
Written out a bit more fully, New York did a miserable job, because of the dysfunctional relationships between:
Cuomo and de Blasio
de Blasio and the NYC health department (eventually the head got de Blasio’s attention by threatening to resign, and Cuomo of course said de Blasio was nuts, which may be true but not pertinent)
Cuomo and the NY State health department
until they got their act together, after which the main problem was the unwillingness of the state health authorities to cooperate with the city health authorities (which presumably reflects Cuomo/de Blasio issues).
On the other hand, in this country, eventually taking the problem seriously and seeing it through to the point of substantial mitigation is more or less the gold standard, so, yeah.
There are a couple of other things Cuomo did along the way which would be big scandals if we didn’t have bigger scandals every single day. He’s an intelligent ruthless bastard, and a good communicator. We could use more of them and fewer of the dumb incoherent ones, right now. All things considered, and considering what is on offer, I’m an admirer.
Felanius Kootea
@Roger Moore: I also voted for John Chiang, for what it’s worth.
terry chay
One of the counties NOT in that 30 county list is San Francisco, which has had restrictions much stricter than Gov. Newsome. However, our numbers are still too low to be among those listed. So add another 800k to that 80%.
We still allow outdoor dining here. It is a bad idea here and it is a bad idea in New York. Even though outdoors slows the spread of the virus, you simply cannot eat with your mask on. People under the age of 45 and your local drunks are using restaurants as a way of socializing (like bars) so it is spreading. Cases in San Francisco have gone up in a significant manner, but the political wherewithal to close this obvious loophole for viral spread does not exist.
way2blue
Newsom’s lapse in judgement in my opinion, was letting counties control mask & distancing enforcement as restrictions were easing up. And not having any stick at the ready if they didn’t. Now, the threat of state funding cuts serves that purpose. In my county (San Mateo), almost every store has a gate keeper at the entrance to keep track of numbers in the store and to ensure face masks (plus hand sanitizer). I’ve never seen this set-up challenged by nimrods.