Coronavirus updates: California death toll past 2,700; another weekend protest at Capitol
As the U.S. coronavirus death toll climbed past 80,000 Monday, tension continues between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and a number of counties calling for the ability to ease the state’s stay-at-home restrictions sooner rather than later.
The state’s roughly 40 million residents have been under those restrictions since Newsom ordered them in place March 19, part of a sweeping effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the highly contagious coronavirus.
A number of different types of non-essential retail businesses were allowed to reopen for curbside pickup only starting last Friday, a small step toward reopening state and local economies that have been devastated by the pandemic, as businesses across a spectrum of industries have furloughed or laid off staffs en masse amid the health crisis. Unemployment has surged to unprecedented levels, with more than 4.5 million in the state having applied for unemployment insurance since mid-March, the governor said during Monday’s daily news conference. Newsom said the true statewide jobless rate will exceed 20 percent.
Yolo County on Friday amended its public health order to allow curbside business to proceed.
But other counties, primarily rural ones in the northern half of the state, say that curbside pickup is not enough, and that they must be allowed to reopen their economies more fully to stop the economic bleeding.
Over the weekend, El Dorado County leaders sent documentation to the governor saying they are ready to reopen stores, office spaces, restaurants for in-house dining and more, in line with a plan Newsom unveiled in part on Thursday for counties to accelerate ahead of statewide restrictions while staying within Phase 2 of the governor’s four-phase, gradual reopening plan.
Phase 2 represents the reopening of businesses considered lower risk for virus transmission.
According to guidelines shared at last Thursday’s news briefing, El Dorado and other Sacramento-area counties appear to fall short of the requirements to reopen quicker than the rest of the state, with contact tracing capacity the biggest deficiency. Newsom plans to give a more detailed explanation of “regional variance” reopening plans on Tuesday.
El Dorado joins San Luis Obispo and Nevada counties, as well as the Yuba-Sutter bicounty health office, as some of the first in the state to submit attestations of their reopening plans to the governor’s office.
At least 2,770 have died in California of COVID-19 among nearly 68,000 cases, according to a Sacramento Bee survey of counties’ health departments as of midday Monday. Over 3,200 patients were hospitalized with the disease as of Saturday, nearly 1,100 of them in intensive care units, the state public health department said in a Sunday update.
Given its population, California’s coronavirus death and infection rates remain modest compared to the country as a whole, where more than 1.34 million people have been infected and more than 80,000 have died from COVID-19 as of Monday afternoon, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
Newsom and top state health officials, though, have cautioned for weeks that easing California’s stay-at-home restrictions too much or too quickly could result in a second wave of the outbreak that’s even worse, in terms of both infections and economic damage, than the first.
Immunization rates drop during pandemic
Despite guidance from doctors, many parents aren’t taking their children for shots during the coronavirus pandemic.
On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a decline of about 2.5 million doses compared to 2019 of all pediatric vaccines, not counting influenza vaccines, since March 13, when the president declared a national emergency due to COVID-19.
The CDC administers the federally funded Vaccines for Children program, which provides vaccines for about half of U.S. kids.
In California, the number of VFC vaccine doses administered to minors decreased by about 60 percent as recorded in the California Immunization Registry for April 2020, according to the state Department of Public Health. These vaccines were purchased and distributed in the state through the VFC program, which provides immunizations for nearly half of California’s 9.26 million children.
No relationship in the drop in vaccinations and the number of COVID-19 cases in a county was observed, suggesting a fear of visiting doctors’ offices could be more to blame than virus activity itself.
Dr. Yasuko Fukuda, president of the California chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a general pediatrician in San Francisco, said AAP doctors are concerned about the decline in the number of children receiving recommended vaccines.
“The immunization rates are plummeting because parents are afraid to come in for well visits and sick visits,” Fukuda said.
The fallout could lead to global outbreaks of preventable diseases, such as measles, pertussis and meningitis, which are under control due to vaccinations, she said.
Latest in Sacramento area: Slow increase in cases over weekend
More than 1,560 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases have been reported in the four-county Sacramento region as of Monday afternoon, and of those, 78 have died. Another 53 infections and three deaths have come in nearby Yuba and Sutter counties.
State leaders on Thursday, in detailing guidelines for counties to be able to self-certify their own reopening plans, set a requirement of having no COVID-19 deaths for at least two weeks. As of Monday morning, El Dorado, Placer, Yuba and Sutter passed that test; Sacramento and Yolo counties did not, each reporting a death within the last five days.
Sacramento County public health officials have recorded 1,173 cases of the coronavirus and 50 deaths, last updated shortly before noon Monday. Five additional cases were reported Saturday, two on Sunday and six more Monday. The county’s most recent fatality was reported Friday.
Yolo County reports 174 cases and 20 deaths, as of Monday afternoon. Fifteen of those deaths — including at least one staff member — have come at Stollwood Convalescent Hospital, located within the St. John’s Retirement Village campus in Woodland, according to the county website. The county’s most recently reported death came last Wednesday.
Placer County has reported 169 lab-confirmed cases and eight fatalities from the coronavirus, last updated Sunday morning. More than 135 of the cases are in South Placer, which includes Rocklin, Roseville and Lincoln. Placer County last reported a coronavirus death on April 15.
El Dorado County reported two more cases over the weekend, bringing the total number of people infected there to 56. No deaths from the virus have been reported, as of Monday afternoon. Most of the infections are in the Lake Tahoe and El Dorado Hills areas, at about 20 apiece.
Sutter County has confirmed 33 COVID-19 cases and two related fatalities, last updated Sunday. The most recent death in Sutter came April 4.
Yuba County reports one death among 20 total cases. That death was reported April 9.
What will happen to restaurants reopening early?
Sutter and Yuba counties, in defiance of Newsom’s order, allowed a number of Phase 2 and Phase 3 businesses, including restaurants for dine-in service, hair and nail salons, and a shopping mall, to reopen at the beginning of last week under an order from bicounty public health officer Dr. Phuong Luu.
Newsom rebuked the two counties early last week, calling the decision a “big mistake.” By midweek, regulators with the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control had visited numerous restaurants in the two rural counties, notifying them that they were in violation of the statewide restrictions and asking them to voluntarily close down their dining rooms.
A number of licensed businesses in other Northern California counties, from hair salons to ABC-licensed restaurants, have reopened or announced plans to do so publicly on social media, despite possible repercussions. Many of these businesses’ owners have made statements effectively saying their livelihood depends on reopening, so they are willing to take the chance of getting shut down or losing their license.
Aji Japanese Bistro in El Dorado Hills Town Center, for instance, announced last week on Facebook that it would be reopening its dining room on Sunday — Mother’s Day — but with a number of adaptations including partitions between booths, closure of the bar area, new sanitation stations and halving the restaurant’s max capacity.
The sushi and Japanese Fusion restaurant did as it said it would, serving customers in its modified booths from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., according to social media posts. Then, in another Facebook post Sunday evening, the restaurant said that it would be closed Monday and Tuesday, and that after receiving “an overwhelming amount of love” with “both dine-in and take-out orders,” the staff needs “a couple of days to reload, regroup, and prepare to serve you again.”
Another eatery, Cafe El Dorado, located on Pleasant Valley Road in the unincorporated community of El Dorado, wrote on a GoFundMe page posted Sunday evening that it reopened for business May 1, with the owner saying they had no choice: “it was do or die two months behind in rent (and) two eviction notices.”
Now the restaurant is using the crowdfunding website to ask for $20,000 toward “upcoming legal fees and possible fines” for defying Newsom’s order.
“My crew and I did this for the American people and small businesses nationwide!” diner owner Cherie Baldridge wrote on the website.
El Dorado County officials have said they are instituting an education-based strategy rather than enforcing the stay-at-home restrictions via law enforcement. The question remains whether restaurants like Aji and Cafe El Dorado will see disciplinary action from the state, including suspension or pulling of liquor licenses.
“ABC’s preference is education over enforcement,” state ABC spokesman John Carr said in an emailed response to The Bee’s request for comment. “However, we are prepared to move forward with disciplinary action against those businesses that are in violation of stay at home orders.”
Carr said the department continues to receive “complaints about ABC licensed businesses re-opening to inside dining and alcohol consumption on the premises.”
As of Friday afternoon, ABC regulators had contacted 111 businesses in 43 different counties and “most have complied” with requests to voluntarily shut down, Carr wrote. A page on the ABC website dedicated to COVID-19 restrictions says 98 percent of those contacted have complied with agents’ voluntary requests.
Carr says the ABC has taken just three disciplinary actions so far for violations of the stay-at-home order, but that he could not provide names or locations for those offenses at this time “because these matters are still under investigation.”
Carr did not address The Bee’s question of how many violations came in Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba counties. But Carr previously said that as of Wednesday, no administrative action had yet been taken against any ABC-licensed businesses in response to the Tuesday’s visit by regulators to Yuba and Sutter counties.
Another weekend protest at the Capitol
Protest demonstrations in recent weeks at the Capitol building in downtown Sacramento have called upon Newsom to allow the reopening of the state’s economy.
Dozens of demonstrators in militia clothing, but unarmed, gathered Saturday at the west side of the Capitol to protest Newsom’s stay-at-home order. More than 75 California Highway Patrol officers stood guard behind steel barricades that were set up Thursday to keep a large group from entering the Capitol grounds.
Others not associated with the militia demonstrated as well, many of them with signs and banners supporting President Donald Trump as they ignored social distancing guidelines. They said Newsom’s shutdown of the economy and the California Highway Patrol’s ban on protests on the Capitol grounds were unconstitutional. A third group formed a prayer group across the street from the Capitol.
The protests came after a federal judge on Friday upheld the CHP’s temporary ban on protests as the Capitol, saying the state’s emergency powers during the coronavirus pandemic give it the authority to order a halt to such gatherings.
A May 1 protest that brought roughly 1,000 people to the Capitol grounds ended in nearly three dozen arrests as some demonstrators refused CHP officers’ orders to disperse.
A demonstration on the grounds Thursday was thwarted when protesters arriving to find the CHP had ringed the west side of the Capitol property with steel gates and posted hundreds of officers around the perimeter to ensure they could not advance beyond the 10th Street sidewalk. The protesters stuck to the sidewalk and the rally proceeded without incident or arrest.
Shortly after 2 p.m. Saturday, the militia group departed from the Capitol, along with several others, leaving a contingent of fewer than 25 protesters, who insulted the CHP officers by calling them “Gestapo” and “SS,” references to the secret police of Nazi Germany.
Will California’s state workers face more furloughs?
On Thursday, the Department of Finance projected a $54 billion deficit, raising questions about where the state will look to reduce spending this time around. State workers faced furloughs when the state faced a $40 billion deficit in 2008.
Furloughs have not been discussed publicly at this point amid the coronavirus pandemic. Spending cuts include departments being directed to avoid unnecessary travel and contracts, to use discretion in hiring and to cancel leave buyback programs.
Newsom says the state is better positioned financially than during the last economic downturn. Former Gov. Jerry Brown left a substantial reserve because he anticipated another recession, even before the coronavirus pandemic cut state revenues and drove up costs.
But Newsom also said the state’s ability to come through the crisis this time will depend on the degree of federal support.
“Because of this pandemic, because of what it has done, these revenue shortfalls are bigger even than the state of California,” the governor said.
Twelve years ago, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s aggressive approach to pay reductions during the Great Recession set new legal precedents that could affect how furloughs would proceed if they are considered again.
Schwarzenegger claimed emergency authority and ordered furloughs that went into effect Feb. 1, 2009.
Most of the state’s civil servants, with the exception of CHP officers, firefighters and some others, were forced to take off the first and third Friday of each month, a pay cut of about 10 percent intended to save the state $1.3 billion over 17 months. Unions sued, arguing the governor didn’t have the legal authority to impose furloughs.
The deficit grew by another $20 billion. Furloughs increased to three days per month, representing a pay reduction of about 15 percent. Schwarzenegger threatened adding a fourth furlough day but never ordered it.
The legal fight over the furloughs went all the way to the state Supreme Court.
In October 2010, the court ruled the governor doesn’t have the authority to impose furloughs unilaterally, ruling authority over state pay rests with the Legislature. But the justices said that because the state Legislature had “tacitly” approved the reductions in their annual budget votes, the furloughs were legal.
The traditional approach to furloughs had been through collective bargaining. That approach, using “personal leave programs,” eventually resumed under Schwarzenegger and continued under Brown, a Democrat, through June 2013.
The negotiated agreements were for one furlough day per month, and they applied to CHP officers and firefighters.
Many workers accumulated large leave balances during the furloughs. The state Legislative Analyst’s Office reviewed the furloughs and the leave in 2013, finding that while the furloughs were effective in achieving short-term savings, costs accumulated over time.
World numbers: 4.1 million infected, over 285,000 dead
The global coronavirus infection total shot past 4 million over the weekend, according to the Johns Hopkins data map, and had reached 4.16 million by 3:30 p.m. Pacific time. More than 285,000 people have died in the pandemic so far.
The United States continues to have by far the highest infection and fatality totals of any nation, at about 1.34 million and 80,000, respectively.
Within the U.S., New York has reported more than 26,500 deaths, followed by New Jersey at over 9,300 and Massachusetts at about 5,100. Michigan is next at over 4,500, followed by Pennsylvania and Illinois at 3,800 and 3,400 fatalities, respectively.
Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Florida, Louisiana, California and Connecticut range from 1,000 to 3,000 dead, according to the Johns Hopkins dataset. Colorado is closing in on the 1,000 mark, reporting 987 dead as of Monday afternoon.
After the United States, the United Kingdom reports the next highest death toll at over 32,000. More than 30,500 have died in Italy, plus just over 26,000 in each of Spain and France. Brazil has risen quickly in recent days, up to 11,200 dead. Belgium’s death toll is near 8,700, and Germany has surpassed 7,500 dead.
What is COVID-19? How is the coronavirus spread?
Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within 6 feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby. The CDC says it’s possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”
Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Most develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.
This story was originally published May 11, 2020 at 8:51 AM.
