Stanislaus County won’t defeat COVID-19 until our residents take it seriously
Blame Gov. Gavin Newsom all you want, but he didn’t shove Stanislaus County back to the state’s most restrictive COVID-19 purple tier.
We did.
Yes, his administration set the standard. Because of that, we knew exactly what the goal was. We knew exactly what our numbers must be to remain in the less-restrictive red tier or even improve. The standard was no secret, and we simply didn’t meet it.
In fact, we didn’t come close. Our cases per 100,000 people are double the limit for staying in the red tier, and our test positivity rate is nearly double what it was a week before.
Stanislaus leaders last week bought us another six days in red by filing an appeal in what’s known as the adjudication process. Some arguments seemed to make sense; for example, it doesn’t seem fair to force all restaurant dining and gym exercise outdoors again, in this cold weather, if the surge in COVID cases can’t definitively be tied to eating and exercising indoors.
But surely there is a link. Those restaurants in Modesto and beyond that stretched the red-tier boundaries — no more than 25% indoor capacity — contributed to the spread of disease. The open defiance of relatively few generated headlines in The Modesto Bee, while those who sacrificed to keep the rules, helping preserve the safety of staff and customers, are to be commended. But others cheated without being caught, and most likely contributed to the pickle in which we now find ourselves.
Perhaps more dangerous are gatherings, in homes and elsewhere, which can be COVID hotbeds if unwittingly attended by a single asymptomatic carrier.
To every action there is a reaction. Wearing masks and keeping one’s distance in public help slow the pandemic spread — we know this, because places like Taiwan and New Zealand have proved it — while ignoring such guidelines increases the spread. The science is very simple.
Yet people and businesses ignoring guidelines could be seen throughout Stanislaus County. They preferred selfish behavior to our collective good. This normalized disobedience ran directly contrary to the obvious — that strict precautions represented our best hope of reopening schools and the economy.
And here we are, back in purple, largely because we couldn’t follow simple instructions.
State health officials might have laughed at Stanislaus’ appeal, seeing us beg to remain in the red when our numbers were nowhere near the goal.
Does it help to know we’re not alone? Does misery truly love company?
Because 41 of 58 California counties, like Stanislaus, now find themselves in purple. Some, including Tuolumne County, were downgraded not one but two tiers; that’s truly a bitter pill to swallow.
Are more COVID restrictions coming?
The bigger mystery may be that Newsom stopped short of another lockdown order similar to the one that kept everything but nonessential businesses closed early this year. He was mulling a curfew when this editorial was written, and may have pulled the trigger by the time you read this.
And yes, Newsom definitely needs to practice what he preaches; the ridicule aimed at his French Laundry party dinner is richly deserved, and some predict it will be his undoing.
The inescapable downside to renewed harsher restrictions: the more you take away frustrated people’s ability to enjoy worshiping, eating out and gathering in large groups, the more they’re inclined to gather in small groups in homes — exactly what they should not do. And more of that can be expected as the holidays approach.
COVID fatigue is real. People are tired — exhausted, even — of life in what seems like an unreal and unfriendly dimension, without church and sports and the usual entertainment. They don’t like hearing what they can’t do.
Our self-inflicted backward spiral is a direct result of too many doing it anyway.
This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 4:00 AM.