Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to relax rules during COVID surge is a deadly mistake

Stay home. Stay safe. Save lives.

This is the messaging Californians have been hearing for nearly a year as the COVID-19 virus has claimed more than 400,000 American lives and left previously unimaginable tragedy in its wake.

In the face of a disaster unlike any we’ve seen before, we are exhausted, frustrated and eager to return to some form of normalcy. It is difficult to balance the hope provided by COVID-19 vaccines with the grim reality that we’re still in the worst surge of the pandemic to date.

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently lifted California’s regional stay-at-home orders — yet now is the time to double down on safety precautions. Yes, we have made some progress in reducing case counts, but the number of new daily cases and the rate of positive tests remains far above the level public health experts say is safe for reopening our economy. In all of Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, no ICU beds are available — a troubling reality for the tens of thousands of Californians likely to need hospitalization in the coming weeks and months.

We learned the hard way last summer that reopening too quickly, before the virus is fully suppressed, will inevitably lead to a surge of infections. A study from the National Center for Disaster Preparedness suggests that as many as 210,000 American lives lost to COVID-19 could have been saved if our national response had been as fast and as effective as other countries. Now, nearly 11 months later, after repeatedly compromising our ability to rein in this virus by rescinding stay-at-home orders at the first signs of improvement, more than 38,000 Californians have died.

The most recent decision to cancel the stay-at-home orders was based on projections of where ICU capacity will be in one month. Yet making decisions based on projected data rather than our current reality jeopardizes the gains we’ve made and sends the signal to Californians that the pandemic is less serious than it truly is.

Meanwhile, a new, more contagious variant of COVID-19 is now spreading throughout California, making activities we previously considered relatively safe more dangerous. If we lift restrictions on mobility and resume non-essential behaviors such as getting haircuts or eating at restaurants, the COVID-19 case count will almost certainly rise again and more people will needlessly die.

We need to remember that we have the power to save lives, and that measures to protect public health will help, not hurt, our economy in the long run.

Our local officials must keep stronger protections in place until the virus is no longer spreading uncontrollably. Economists have emphasized that suppressing COVID-19 and controlling the pandemic is the best thing we can do to help the economy — short-lived reopenings will do more harm than good to our local businesses.

Elected leaders must also prioritize safely reopening schools by controlling community spread and providing adequate funding for testing, personal protective equipment and facilities upgrades, such as better ventilation systems.

To fully suppress COVID-19, we need to dramatically increase our state’s testing capacities and vaccination rate. According to the Brown University School of Public Health and Harvard Global Health Institute, California needs to conduct about three times as much testing as it’s doing now. The governor and legislature must provide sufficient funds to pay for effective vaccine acceptance education, coordination and staffing for vaccine distribution and tracking of shots administered.

We ask each and every one of our local officials to accept the governor’s offer to maintain the restrictions of the stay-at-home orders. Your actions will determine how many lives we choose to save.

This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.