To mask or not to mask? El Dorado County faces a coronavirus reckoning this week
For a month now, El Dorado County has been the only county in the Sacramento region that has avoided landing on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “watchlist” of counties that require tighter restrictions to fight the coronavirus.
Sacramento County was first to hit the list, followed by Yolo, Placer, Yuba and Sutter counties. In all, 36 California counties were on the list as of Saturday.
Now, with infections on the rise in El Dorado, county officials say they may be days from being added to the governor’s list, a step that would require more businesses to close and would likely force schools to keep doors closed when instruction starts in a few weeks.
The county notably has experienced just one death from the virus. But the number of cases has nearly doubled in the last two weeks alone and the percentage of El Dorado residents’ tests coming back positive for COVID-19 is twice what it was a month ago.
Can El Dorado steer clear of the state’s watchlist? The outcome likely depends on a touchy subject: will enough residents wear masks?
Newsom mandated masks be worn in public places statewide on June 18. President Donald Trump recently acknowledged their usefulness. But El Dorado County residents are divided. Some see mask orders as dubious assaults on their independence, others as a way to stay safe and show respect for others concerned about catching the virus.
Andrea Riso, a jeweler at Talisman Collection in El Dorado Hills, wears a mask. She had a run-in recently with a customer who refused to wear a face covering, claiming that she didn’t have to because she is a sovereign nation.
“I told her I preferred she be a sovereign nation out on the sidewalk,” Rizo said. “It was extremely unpleasant. She caused a huge scene.”
Riso said she believes more people are wearing masks out of common courtesy. “I see young people not wearing masks, but when they come in, they pull their mask on. It makes me feel good. It means someone cares.”
Brian Veerkamp, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, says he wears a bandana when he goes into the bank, but he questions the effectiveness of masks. He sees people wearing masks that aren’t clean and that he says can carry viruses.
He said society should be measuring the connection between COVID-19 closures and an increase in suicides and alcohol and drug use. He also cites the harm to children who are not able to go to school. “At some point you have to do a risk analysis,” he said.
The county Board of Supervisors nevertheless this month upped the ante, giving county environmental health officials the go-ahead to revoke licenses of businesses that blatantly disobey coronavirus safety rules, such as requiring indoor workers to wear masks.
One restaurant, the Apple Bistro in Camino, made headlines by posting anti-mask signs and a notice saying the governor can’t tell them what to do. County code officials warned the restaurant last week its permit to operate could be suspended and its business license revoked if it does not require employees to wear masks.
Should businesses turn customers away?
For businesses, it can become a balancing act. Laurel Brent-Bumb, head of the El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce, asks: What do you do when someone walks into your business not wearing a mask?
“You want to abide by the order,” she said. But in tough economic times, “you want to make ends meet. Do you turn that (person’s) business away?”
She bristles at some of the governor’s edicts. But she recently sent a public message: “Let’s stop being angry over having to wear a mask and start protecting the very businesses we love,” she wrote. “Don’t put the very people who you see as friends and colleagues in the position of having to tell you to put your mask on.
“Don’t make them have to make the uncomfortable choice of choosing your patronage, over the possible loss of their business.”
For now, El Dorado County is holding up relatively well against the coronavirus compared to many other California counties. It still has one of the lowest test positivity rates in the state and has recorded only one death: an older South Lake Tahoe man a week ago.
Of the county’s 500-plus cases, nearly half have occurred in the tourist corner of the county in the Lake Tahoe basin. The Placerville area, in the middle of the county, has registered 52. The rural areas of the county remain largely spared.
But test positivity rates have been rising fast in the last month, creeping closer to the state average, and county officials got a jolt when last weekend’s test results showed 21 new cases in El Dorado Hills.
County Supervising Public Health Nurse Heather Orchard said officials haven’t pinpointed a particular cause, though it’s clear some cases are coming from workplaces.
Some suggest it may be because more people in El Dorado Hills mingle with the adjacent metropolitan area and urban area in Sacramento and Folsom, or that some people from Sacramento County are coming up to El Dorado businesses that remain open. But it may simply be that the virus is spreading in family gatherings, including those that took place during the July 4 weekend.
County health officials are preaching individual responsibility.
Tahoe remains a conundrum for the county. On one hand, tourist dollars feed the economy. But crowds from all over the north state lead to spreading COVID-19. County health officials initially banned people from going to Tahoe this spring, but officials in South Lake Tahoe are no longer telling people not to come up.
“We had messaged that Tahoe is closed,” city spokesman Chris Fiore said. “We have stopped that messaging. We know people are coming. We don’t have gates. We just want you to do it responsibly.”
The city has signed up nearly 30 volunteer ambassadors who will be out as early as this weekend handing out masks to tourists and offering safety advice.
“We just try to send the same message, to follow the guidelines,” Orchard said.