‘A clear danger’: West Sacramento mayor urges Yolo County to slow reopening

The mayor of West Sacramento has asked Yolo County to slow its plans to start loosen stay-at-home restrictions, contending the county’s readiness plan “inadequately protects” the city’s residents because of a lack of testing.

Yolo County sent paperwork Monday afternoon to the state in its bid to reopen the local economy under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to the lift stay-at-home order meant to slow the coronavirus pandemic. Under Phase 2 of Newsom’s plan, many businesses would be allowed to open their doors — including those in shopping malls — and customers would be allowed to dine-in at restaurants, with modifications.

Yolo County Board of Supervisor Chair Gary Sandy told The Sacramento Bee on Monday the county could get the green light to reopen as early as Tuesday.

But in an email to county supervisors and California Department of Public Health officials sent Friday, West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon said “reopening without testing in the most affected area presents a clear danger.”

None of the three testing centers now operating in Yolo County is in West Sacramento. Those testing facilities are harder to reach for West Sacramento residents, particularly the “nontrivial proportion” who don’t have cars, Cabaldon wrote.

The state’s current testing center in the county, now in Woodland, will move to West Sacramento and start operating June 2. But that’s too late, Cabaldon said, opening up the opportunity for the virus to flourish until then.

“My city is neither isolated nor rural, and is economically integrated with metropolitan Sacramento,” Cabaldon wrote. “As a result, an undetected and uncontained outbreak in West Sacramento will spread rapidly through a population center of nearly two million people under advanced Stage 2 or Stage 3 conditions.”

West Sacramento accounts for 55 percent of all COVID-19 hospitalizations in the county, and half of all cases that don’t stem from congregate living facilities like nursing homes.

“Until we are testing at least 100 people per day in West Sacramento with attendant contact tracing, it is not appropriate for Yolo County to advance quickly through Stage 2,” Cabaldon wrote. He shared the email with The Bee Tuesday morning.

Cabaldon said in his email the city offered to help pay for the cost of an additional testing site and has prepared several locations for use, but that the county has indicated the state “will not allow two testing centers to be funded and operated simultaneously, nor a mobile testing unit.”

“Without testing, we are managing the emergency, and its significant risks, blindfolded,” Cabaldon wrote.

So far, 184 people have been infected with the coronavirus in Yolo County and 22 have died.

This story was originally published May 19, 2020 at 11:39 AM.