When the clock strikes midnight, Dec. 7, California resumes coronavirus AKA SARS CoV-2 or Covid-19 lockdowns, trying the same strategy that seems to slow the spread of the virus in March and April. But no health official or forecasting agency can predict how another lockdown at this stage of the global pandemic will contain the virus, let alone reverse current trends of increased admissions in California’s public and private hospitals. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 52, finds himself listening to scientists, the same ones the told him March 15 that 25.5 million or 60% of residents would be infected by March 15. Today’s infection rates hit 1,269,087 but nowhere near what Newsom predicted March 15. What’s known for sure is that government lockdowns have devastated the states economy, leading to the largest state budget deficit in history, no reaching $54.3 billion and climbing.
Los Angeles County hit a record 10,528 cases today, not knowing exactly how many will end up hospitalized, let alone in Intensive Care Unit [ICU] beds. Newsom and other state health officials fear the hospitals will be swamped to overflow capacity due to the recent spike in cases attributed to the Thanksgiving holiday. California’s law enforcement agencies put Newsom on notice that they won’t use resources to enforce the governor’s stay-at-home orders, certainly not cite or arrest businesses for violating the governor’s lockdown ordes. “Orange County Sheriff’s deputies will not be dispatched to, or respond to, calls for service to enforce compliances with face coverings, social gatherings or star at home orders,” said Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes. No matter what the consequences to public health, law enforcement agencies don’t see their role as Covid-19 enforcers.
Nowhere in the state is the Covid-19 crisis worse than Los Angeles County. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva made no statement with regard to enforcing the governor’s latest stay at home order. Sheriff’s deputies “will not be blackmailed, bullied or used to muscle” to enforce the governor’s lockdowns, prompting Newsom to say certain cities or counties could lose state revenue if they don’t comply with his orders. San Francisco County, that has 16,786 cases, compared to Los Angeles County’s 449,851 cases, prompted Mayor London Breed to issue his own stay at home order. California currently has a death rate of 1.4%, compared to New York’s 4.7% or Texas at 1.7%. Imposing his new lockdowns, Newsom has been relying on expected hospitalizations and bed availability, not death rates. All indications point to the virus being less lethal than it was back last spring and early summer.
Elected officials in Washington or at the state level, don’t know what to do to flatten the curve of new coronavirus cases other than impose strict lockdowns. There’s no real evidence that lockdowns worked last spring when 74-year-old President Donald Trump listened to National Institutes of Health [NIH[Chief of Allergy and Infectious Disease Dr. Anthony Fauci, urging Trump to lock down the country. Only four weeks of lockdowns drove the nation’s 3.5% unemployment rate to over 12.5%, creating the worst recession since the 2008 Financial Crisis. More lockdowns of small, medium and large businesses in California promises to hit Wall Street with a wrecking ball. So far, Wall Street has weathered the storm looking to the future to support the current rally that brought market averages in the Dow Jones Industrials, Nasdaq and S&P 500 to record highs. But once it’s clear that unemployment continues to deteriorate, Wall Street will go into sell mode, driving market averaged much lower.
Newsom hasn’t figure out any alternative to loctdowns, shutting down businesses and preaching to ordinary citizens that they remain sheltered in place. Newsom had his bout of hypocrisy attending a birthday party Nov. 13 at Wine Country’s posh French Laundry eatery. Whatever the hypocrisy, there are real scientific questions whether at this stage of the global pandemic that shutdowns slow the spread of the virus. With the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines getting FDA emergency use authorization sometime this week, health authorities hope that it begins to slow the spread of the virus. Getting vaccines to market won’t be easy with the logistics of keeping the vaccine at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit for transportation. Rolling out the vaccine won’t reduce the virus from spreading for months, requiring strict mask, social distancing and hand-washing requirements to stay in place for the indefinite future.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom looks to the federal government to bailout the state, something that won’t happen anytime soon. Even if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agree on a $908 billion stimulus package, it won’t be enough for states like California that have watched its tax revenue stream evaporate. Newsom places his hope to contain the virus of scientists, the same ones that told him March 15 that the state would have 60% of its residents infected by May 15. California currently has 3.4% of the population infected with Covid-19. State health officials can’t say whether the death rate has lowered with the current strain of the novel coronavirus. Looking only at hospitalizations, state health officials don’t know whether the latest lockdown, which will have devastating consequence on the state’s economy, will slow the spread of Covid-19.
