Current Affairs Of Pakistan & World: California Today: Newsom Rolls Back Reopening

California Today: Newsom Rolls Back Reopening

July 14, 2020

By Jill Cowan

Abel Gomez waiting for his order at the Mariscos Linda food truck on July 1 in Los Angeles.Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

Good morning.

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“Nothing is constant,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Monday, during his latest online briefing. “Nothing is linear as it relates to infectious disease.”

That has become increasingly clear in recent weeks as Californians, once seemingly destined to avoid the worst of the virus’s toll, have been forced to navigate a patchwork of restrictions, amid surging case numbers and strained hospitals.

So the governor announced what amounted to one of the nation’s most sweeping rollbacks of efforts to reopen businesses, almost four months since the state became the first to impose a stay-at-home order.

[Track which states have reopened — or closed back down.]

Statewide, he said, bars must shutter. Indoor operations at restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, card rooms and museums must also shut down.

In the roughly 30 counties on the state’s “monitoring list” — where 80 percent of California’s population lives and where the virus is hitting particularly hard — Mr. Newsom said that indoor malls, places of worship, hair salons, fitness centers and other types of businesses would have to close, except if they can operate outdoors.

[See The Times’s map tracking coronavirus cases by California county.]

The state was averaging more than 8,000 new cases a day as of Sunday, more than double what it was a month ago. The state has seen 331,626 cases, the second highest tally in the nation, and more than 7,000 deaths, according to The Times’s database.

Mr. Newsom once again emphasized that the state’s reopening is more like a “dimmer switch,” and not a simple “on” or “off.” Here’s what he means by that. [The New York Times]
For small businesses, the toggling between open, closed and somewhere in between has been a nightmare. So thousands, including in California, are closing permanently. [The New York Times]
Mayor Eric Garcetti said that Los Angeles’s threat level was close to red, the highest possible, according to a color-coded scale. If L.A. does tip into that range, the tight restrictions of his original stay-at-home order would be reinstated. [LAist]
What’s the status of colleges, beaches and casinos? Find all of our California reopening coverage here. [The New York Times]

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Los Angeles and San Diego public schools will be online-only.

Students leaving Palms Middle School in Los Angeles at the end of a school day in March.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times

Mr. Newsom’s announcement came not long after education officials in Los Angeles and San Diego said that schools in the state’s two largest public school districts will be online-only in the fall, my colleagues reported.

“There’s a public health imperative to keep schools from becoming a petri dish,” said Austin Beutner, the Los Angeles school district’s superintendent.

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Together, the districts enroll about 825,000 students. The two districts are the largest in the country to abandon plans for even a partial return to classrooms.

[Read the full story.]

More than a third of California’s coronavirus cases are in Los Angeles County, and San Diego County has had 18 community outbreaks over the past week, more than double the state’s acceptable threshold.

Officials in other large California school districts, including Santa Clara, Oakland and San Bernardino have said they’ll be remote-only for the foreseeable future. And teachers’ unions have come out against a return to in-person classes.

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Still, the decision drew the ire of President Trump, who has demanded that schools reopen physically in the fall, disregarding the advice of his own health experts.

The Orange County Board of Education urged a markedly different approach: Students should return to campus, without social distancing and without masks. But the board doesn’t actually have the authority to impose those guidelines on any of the county’s 27 school districts. [The Orange County Register]
Many of the nation’s 3.5 million teachers have found themselves feeling under siege as pressure to get back to classrooms mounts, even as the virus continues its dangerous spread. [The New York Times]
One major pediatric group pushed to reopen schools: “So much of our world relies on kids being in school and parents being able to work.” [The New York Times]

Here’s what else to know today

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A fissure from a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that struck near Ridgecrest, Calif., last July. Mario Tama/Getty Images

A pair of strong earthquakes last July caused changes in stresses along the San Andreas Fault, resulting in an increased possibility of a major quake in the future, a new analysis found: “We are still saying this is unlikely,” one researcher said. “It’s just a little likelier.” [The New York Times]

If you missed it, Lucy Jones talked about how earthquake science has changed in an interview that has new resonance in the pandemic. [The New York Times]

A Navy warship is still on fire at a San Diego base. It’s one of the worst blazes ever to engulf an American warship outside of combat. [The New York Times]
A Native American tribe wants to build a prison on its reservation near the Salton Sea in what would be the first project of its kind in the nation. The 8,400-bed medium-security prison, which the state would lease, would be California’s largest. [The Desert Sun]
Secretary of State Alex Padilla, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Representative Karen Bass are among a crowd of Democrats getting buzz around who might replace Senator Kamala Harris if she’s tapped as Joe Biden’s vice-presidential candidate. [Politico]
The San Diego District Attorney’s Office on Monday charged a sheriff’s deputy with second-degree murder in the killing of an unarmed man who escaped from a park ranger’s car in May. [The New York Times]
More than a month after California Highway Patrol officers shot and killed Erik Salgado and wounded his girlfriend in Oakland, Mr. Salgado’s family criticized the agency for refusing to reveal the names of the officers involved. [Oaklandside]
The body of Naya Rivera, the “Glee” star who was missing after a boating trip with her young son, was found at Lake Piru. She was 33. [The New York Times]

Here’s a column revisiting why Ms. Rivera’s character on “Glee,” the devastatingly cool, razor sharp Santana Lopez, was so magnetic. [Variety]

Wondering why people keep talking about moldy jam? An Instagram user shared allegations that Jessica Koslow, the owner of the hip, popular Sqirl, and a face of Los Angeles’s “toast culture,” told employees to scrape mold off the cafe’s signature jams. She’s vowed to stop, but she hasn’t addressed concerns that she co-opted recipes from staff members. [Eater Los Angeles]
The pandemic has been painful for many communities and parts of the economy. But business is blooming for plant shops, where cooped-up Californians can find little beacons of life and light. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.

Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, went to school at U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.

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