During the peak of the HIV epidemic, “telling people to just stay away from each other, otherwise they’re selfish, just didn’t work,” Gandhi said. Officials might consider asking people to stop eating and drinking with people outside their household, but allowing them to take walks with friends, or gather for limited periods of time outdoors, at a 6ft distance while wearing face masks. Gandhi, who heads the HIV, infectious diseases, and global medicine unit at UCSF/ San Francisco general hospital, said public health officials would do well to learn from the Aids crisis in developing safety measures that reduce harm. “People are meeting despite the risks because they are understandably sad and lonely,” Gandhi said, noting that lockdown measures were particularly tough around the holidays. Officials had failed to clearly justify their priorities and explain why a socially distanced, marked outdoor walk with a friend was banned but indoor retail shopping was fine, she said. Is there another way?īetter messaging from public health officials would be a start, Gandhi said. Unlike Europe, California lacks a wide social safety net for those who get sick or lose work due to lockdown restrictions, reducing the incentive and ability for Californians to comply with stay-at-home orders, self-quarantine measures and other pandemic restrictions when faced with financial instability. The new restrictions are also a blow to vulnerable Californians who cannot afford to stay at home.
“There’s true, true pandemic fatigue – and it’s not because the public is selfish, it’s that there’s a true desire to be with other people. The contradictions within the new rules have sown distrust, said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco. The owners of restaurants and small businesses – which have invested in building up outdoor dining areas equipped with space heaters for the winter – argue that the new restrictions will be devastating. Parents have asked why it’s no longer OK for their children to visit playgrounds, while malls remain open. In addition, the measures have triggered backlash from some who believe the rules are too restrictive and others who believe they are too permissive. Despite changing rules and restrictions, the share of Californians who have met with people outside their household has remained steady for months, at around 35 to 45%, per surveys conducted by the University of Southern California. The lockdown could also be an opportunity to “start over”, Induni said, and allow officials to devise better plans and messaging around mask mandates and provide social support for essential workers who cannot stay home.īut compliance will be key, and nine months into the pandemic, Californians are less likely to adhere to a strict lockdown. With ICU beds filling up with Covid-19 patients, it’s the only option in regions that simply have no hospital capacity to treat more sick patients.
California’s approach could help the state reset, with blunt measures helping to convey just how serious this latest wave of infection is.
In Europe, a second set of lockdowns this autumn seems to be slowing infection rates.
#California lockdown california professional#
Outdoor religious services and protests are permitted, and entertainment production and professional sports can continue without a live audience. Non-essential retail, including malls and shopping centers, will remain open at reduced capacity. “My message couldn’t be simpler: it’s time to hunker down,” Los Angeles’s Mayor Eric Garcetti said last week.īut the rules aren’t so simple – they come with many exceptions and caveats. Outdoor dining, playgrounds, campgrounds and other recreation areas are closed. The order, which will remain in place until 4 January, requires people in affected regions to stay home and minimize contact with those outside their household. In the Bay Area, where ICU capacity is at 21%, local leaders in five counties decided to pre-emptively enact lockdown for 6 million residents. The restrictions have already been triggered in southern California and the San Joaquin Valley.
What are the new restrictions?Ĭalifornia’s new shelter-in-place order is designed to be implemented regionally when a region’s intensive care unit capacity falls below 15%. “That leaves us with only one possible solution – asking everyone to stay at home, shelter in place,” Induni said. “We’re seeing an exponential increase – and when there’s just so much of the virus around, the risk of infection everywhere is higher.”Īctivities that were considered low- or medium-risk this summer – such as outdoor recreation and dining – are now much riskier, because a larger proportion of people in any context could be carrying the disease. “This isn’t just an escalation of the pandemic,” Induni said. Having tallied more than 1.3m cases, the state broke a record on Friday with more than 25,000 in a single day.
0 kommentar(er)
