Monthly Archives: July 2020

Is Gavin Newsom serving his own political future or the people?

To a certain extent, the government is mismanaged, and Newsom can not be blamed for that.

However, he has clearly made some bad decisions, including a botched mask order, ordering beaches closed and then rescinding the order and others. His daily address appears to be as much political grandstanding as it is informative. According to the governor, everything is driven by “data,” but it is not clear that the fiduciary needs of small business, who have relatively few customers and a much smaller risk of infection (especially if reasonable safeguards were put into place) have been considered.

We need to do better because this pandemic has no expiration date. It is wildly unlikely that, even should a 100% effective vaccine be developed, every vulnerable person in the US can be vaccinated.

One of the most hypocritical decisions (aside from the horrific decision not to deal with the prison system) has been Newsom’s move to reopen certain localities, even though these failed to meet the standards Newsom himself had set!

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The governor’s plan also included something the state described as a variance process that would allow counties to reopen more quickly if they met a series of benchmarks to show they were capable of containing the spread of the coronavirus.

Among the criteria to be met was a requirement that counties ensure at least 15 staff members per 100,000 residents were trained and available to conduct contact tracing, which 17 counties said they had not yet met and detailed plans to increase staffing over the coming weeks or months.

Another requirement noted that counties must have the capacity to test a daily minimum of 1.5 residents for every 1,000. Though more than two dozen counties had not reached the daily testing threshold when they submitted their forms to reopen, they still met the state’s standard because they explained how they could scale up within their healthcare system.

Weeks later, as cases climbed, the governor defended his reopening decisions and adopted the same argument made by many critics of his original order: The consequences of the COVID-19 shutdown for the economy and mental health were too great to ignore.

“We have to recognize you can’t be in a permanent state where people are locked away — for months and months and months and months on end — to see lives and livelihoods completely destroyed, without considering the health impact of those decisions as well,” Newsom said on June 15.

When pressured again in late June, Newsom conceded that some counties were struggling to contact trace and noted that the state needed to do more on testing.

“We certainly have a responsibility to increase, not only the total number of tests, but who we test, and how we test,” he said.

The governor has not specifically addressed why he created a testing and contact tracing benchmark and then seemed to disregard it before allowing the state to reopen.

Meanwhile Newsom’s ex-wife — a tRump supporter and Faux News host — has tested positive for corona virus.

One really wonders what bedtime conversations that dynamic duo had and what each thought in hooking up with each other. Certainly, Kimberly Guifoyle Newsom, a former lingerie model, has done very well for herself.

Gavin craves the presidency, and she has scored the president’s son. What are the actual ideological similarities between the two former soulmates?

Only the two of them know.

The Mercury News also chose to weigh in authoritatively.

Newsom said on April 14 that he would use six indicators to measure when the state lockdown would end. The first, he said, was the ability to monitor and protect communities through testing, contact tracing, and isolating and supporting people who tested positive or were exposed. But a month later he abandoned that prudent approach, declaring he would loosen his lockdown orders even though the state couldn’t meet the testing and contact-tracing criteria.

Now coronavirus cases are surging throughout the state and nation. California last week experienced its deadliest seven-day period of the pandemic, averaging 84 fatalities per day. The number of cases in California has nearly tripled in one month, from a seven-day average of 2,795 to 7,909.

California COVID-19 hospitalizations and patients in the ICU have reached record levels. And the portion of those taking the test who show positive results has soared to 7.6%, up from 4.4% a month ago. Which all suggests the situation will continue to deteriorate.

At least Newsom has stopped talking about “herd immunity.”

A sample Newsom roadmap (which he chose to ignore). Be sure to check out the links in the Los Angeles Times article.