Thank adults in the room for Monday’s tough coronavirus shutdown decisions
Monday’s far-reaching actions closing many businesses and our schools in Stanislaus County were drastic, predictable and necessary.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s move to again close gyms, churches, malls and salons is a direct result of our abysmal failure to contain the advance of the coronavirus in Modesto and many other Stanislaus cities. It represents a reversion nearly to the state’s early onerous stay-at-home order, leaving open only a few nonessential businesses.
The announcement by local leaders postponing the start of the school year until at least the third week of August, coming Monday on the heels of Newsom’s decision, is a similarly unsettling setback affecting thousands of students, families, teachers and other school staff.
Monday’s pair of actions will touch the lives of most Stanislaus residents. All should be thankful that cooler heads prevailed in the ongoing struggle over how best to respond to the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.
The pain caused by Bloody Monday is real and regrettable. Too many have lost income needed to pay bills, keep food on the table and a roof overhead. Those without work now face even more missed paychecks.
Others are just tired of the inconvenience of living in a pandemic — tired of wearing masks in public, of not working out as they wish, of not being able to eat in their favorite restaurant.
The impatience of too many brought us to this point of regression.
Who’s to blame? Look in the mirror
We did so well in the initial shutdown phase; no one died here in the first month, and confirmed COVID cases stayed manageable for so long. By May 20, we had reason to believe we could flatten the curve and escape COVID’s worst.
In our rush to reopen and regain our prior lives, we got sloppy.
Too many refused to protect themselves and others by wearing face coverings in public. Others ignored the advice of experts on all levels and gathered in groups, allowing the coronavirus to spread by carriers not showing symptoms.
The dramatic uptick in Stanislaus numbers is directly traced to our reopening.
When we reopened on May 20, we had 598 COVID cases. Now, only eights weeks later, Stanislaus has more than eight times that amount — 5178.
Too many celebrated Memorial Day on May 25 as if everything were back to normal. The protests around that time didn’t help. Our willful ignorance began putting people in the hospital. On May 29, Stanislaus hospitals had a manageable 13 COVID patients; by June 11, that number had more than doubled to 29, and now it’s 188, an alarming and unsustainable increase.
Around Memorial Day, the 14-day rolling positivity rate for Stanislaus tests was a comfortable 4%. Now it’s 13.9%.
Anyone paying attention these past few weeks cannot be surprised that the governor did what he did Monday. It’s not just that what we were doing was not working; we were actually and actively failing, and we knew it.
A tough decision, but the right one
Newsom has made his share of missteps in this pandemic, including allowing many counties to open too early. But Monday’s decision, reclosing all but a few businesses here and in several other counties on the state’s watch list — accounting for 80% of the California population — was the right call.
Our school leaders may pay a price for making a similarly tough but informed decision. Delaying in-class instruction should buy us time, hopefully allowing us to get a handle on things before exposing our children and their dedicated educators to potential disaster.
We should thank them for not condemning students and staff in what might have become a dangerously premature social experiment.
Leaders will revisit these decisions in weeks to come. When our COVID numbers come down enough to warrant a new reopening, perhaps we’ll pay better attention.