Mainero and Smoller respond to Wagner; Board of Ed to sue Governor over school closures; Supervisor Bartlett calls for opening indoor malls

✅Mainero and Smoller: Response to Wagner

Voice of OC

     Supervisor Don Wagner quibbles with typos and minor details, but fails to acknowledge the big picture about race relations and the Covid-19 crisis.

     On race relations, Wagner refuses to address the fact the Board of Supervisors rejected the call  to put a discussion of the renaming of John Wayne Airport, an avowed White Supremacist, on the agenda of its July 14 meeting or before voters.

     Just like Trump, Wagner fails to take responsibility for the County’s failed response to the Covid-19 crisis.  Other nations such as China, South Korea, and Italy have beaten back the Covid-19 pandemic with masks, social distancing, testing and contact tracing. But the United States is seeing a frightening resurgence, and Orange County has become a leading hotspot since Memorial Day because President Trump, much of the Republican Party, and the County Board of Supervisors have failed to provide necessary political leadership.

     Medical experts agree that thousands of people could have been saved if Trump had not fumbled the national response. Similarly, the local Republican leadership bucked modest efforts to combat the virus. The Sheriff, with Wagner’s backing, initially refused to enforce the mask order and resisted the governor’s call to close Orange County beaches.  Wagner resisted the mask recommendation of Nichole Quick–Orange County’s Dr. Fauci–telling Dr. Quick, on June 2, as Orange County cases began to spike, “We’re hearing from our citizens that this is a government overreach … Doesn’t that undermine the evidence that is supposedly behind your order (to wear masks)?”

     Supervisor Wagner was part of the group that recommended that K-12 students return to school in Fall without masks or social distancing, and has continued to criticize Governor Newsom’s efforts to stem the virus.

     And the virus cases and deaths in Orange County have, since late May and early June, spiraled out of control. This is not leadership.

     We continue to believe that the national and local GOP are self destructing, largely due to the absence of leadership that takes responsibility, seeks to solve problems, and seeks to understand the harm that racism and science denial have caused, and continue to cause, in the County, and nationally.

✅Orange County Board of Education Decides To Sue Gov. Gavin Newsom Over School Closures

Voice of OC

Ken Williams

     The Orange County Board of Education in a closed session Tuesday night decided to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom to let schools in high-risk California counties reopen for the 2020-21 school year. 

     In an announcement earlier this month, Newsom said that any counties on the state coronavirus watch list, which includes Orange County, could not have students in classrooms. 

In a 4-0 vote, the board decided to move forward with the lawsuit. [Democratic] Trustee Beckie Gomez was absent from the meeting when the decision was made. 

     “Many families will suffer greatly and experience many unknown, unintended consequences if schools remain closed. We believe students and their families must have the option for in-person learning,” said [Republican] board president Ken Williams Jr. “We have made the decision to put the needs of our students first.” 

. . .

     The decision to sue comes after a report published by the board calling for a return to schools without masks or social distancing, which saw Orange County pulled into a national spotlight in the debate over returning to schools. 

     The board also reiterated its support for its report issued earlier this month recommending implementation of in-class instruction to all county school districts. 

. . .

     Multiple members of that panel have disavowed the report since its release, saying they were never consulted and disagree with the recommendations. 

     The board’s recommendations directly opposed the county’s department of education’s guidance, which has called for widespread use of masks and social distancing in classes.

     “We remain laser-focused on supporting our districts and programs as they develop plans for the fall, based on the guidance of state and local public health experts,” said department spokesman Ian Hanigan in a text to Voice of OC on Tuesday night after the board’s vote….

✅OC Supervisor Calls for Reopening Indoor Malls, Meanwhile Coronavirus Rages in Anaheim and Santa Ana

Voice of OC

 

   [Republican] Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett is looking to push state health officials to allow indoor shopping malls to reopen as the coronavirus continues to rip through the Latino community in Anaheim and Santa Ana – where many of those mall workers live.

     “A lot of these indoor malls have a wide expanse of space,” Bartlett said at Tuesday’s county supervisors’ Covid update at their regular public meeting. “I’ve been to some of the outdoor malls lately and, because the indoor malls are closed, the outdoor malls are jammed with people.” 

     She said the outdoor malls are so packed, that people can’t follow the CDC recommended six-foot physical distance from other people to help curb the spread of the virus. Reopening indoor malls would thin crowds at outdoor ones and the indoor malls would be able to do crowd control,” Bartlett argues.  

     “It also helps to offset the outdoor malls,” she said. “Outdoor malls — they can’t control the people coming in at all.” 

     “I think we really have to start looking at opening up the indoor mall sector, I think we can do it safely,” she said. “You can’t classify indoor malls as other indoor confined spaces, like movie theaters,

. . .

     Yet UC Irvine infectious disease expert, Dr. Saahir Khan, who also treats virus patients at the UCI Medical Center in Orange, sees the move as premature.  

     “In terms of opening [indoor] shopping malls, I think it’s premature, given that we haven’t yet seen a sustained decrease in spread of the virus. So I think we made the mistake of reopening too quickly before and we shouldn’t make that mistake again,” Khan said in a phone interview. 

     Khan and his colleague, UCI epidemiologist Andrew Noymer, have repeatedly told Voice of OC business sector reopenings should be done in two to three-week intervals so health officials can measure the impact on public health.

. . . 

     Meanwhile, the virus has now killed 581 people out of 34,833 confirmed cases, according to the county Health Care Agency. 

     The total number includes 15 new deaths reported Tuesday, which can span a time frame of up to eight days. 

     There’s 640 people now hospitalized, including 203 in intensive care units. Nearly 400,000 people have been tested throughout OC, which is home to roughly 3.2 million people. 

     [County interim health officer Dr. Clayton] Chau noted that hospitalizations have remained high over the past few weeks and hospital staff are being worn out. 

     “What we are experiencing now is staff fatigue,” Chau said. “Some of them have been infected and so the availability of nurses to make sure the hospital functions is something of a concern for us … we have got people who can’t go to work because they’re exposed or they tested positive, or fatigued.” 

     “We have three large hospitals in our county [that] are requesting support from the state and for more staffing – and specifically nursing staffing, not so much physicians. So we know that’s something we are watching very closely. So bed availability, ventilator availability is good, but it doesn’t mean that those beds are available if you do not have the nursing staff to support it,” Chau said.

     No Supervisor asked questions about the hospital staffing situation….

✅Orange County Republicans hold in-person fundraisers even as coronavirus spreads

OC Reg

 

✅OC Board of Education to sue Newsom as it seeks the full reopening of schools

OC Reg

From Rough&Tumble

 

✅Top health official: More mask wearing could cut California coronavirus spread up to 60 percent -- The spread of coronavirus across California could be cut at least in half with a modest increase in the number of people wearing masks, one of the state’s top public health experts said Tuesday. Paul Rogers in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 7/29/20

Dr. Clayton Chau

✅Orange County reports 15 coronavirus deaths, the highest single-day count since June -- The Orange County Health Agency on Tuesday reported its highest number of daily deaths related to COVID-19 in more than a month. Colleen Shalby in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/20

✅California Legislature to consider new tax on millionaires for schools, other services -- Democrats in the California Legislature have unveiled a new effort to significantly raise tax rates on taxable income of $1 million and higher, an effort they say would provide billions of dollars to improve K-12 schools and a variety of government services vital to the state’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. John Myers in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/20

 

✅California sues to stop Trump’s order to keep undocumented immigrants from census count -- Citing the constitutional mandate to count “the whole number of persons” in the census, California and the cities of Los Angeles and Oakland joined the wave of lawsuits Tuesday challenging President Trump’s order to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census. Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/29/20

 

✅California’s recession could get worse if Congress cuts unemployment aid, studies say -- Unemployed California workers stand to lose about 43% of their weekly benefit — and the state’s already-reeling economy is likely to lose billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs — if the Republican plan to dramatically cut jobless payments becomes law, new studies reported Tuesday. David Lightman in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 7/29/20

 

✅Trump administration refuses to accept new applications for DACA program -- After the Supreme Court ruled last month that the Trump administration’s move to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program nearly three years ago, was “arbitrary and capricious,” undocumented youth who have been barred from applying to the program while it was being litigated were hopeful that new applications would once again be accepted by federal immigration authorities. Betty Márquez Rosales EdSource -- 7/29/20

 

✅Mysterious seed packets, possibly from China, arriving in Southern California mailboxes -- Mysterious, unsolicited packets of seeds possibly from China are arriving in some Southern California mailboxes, prompting state officials to urge recipients to refrain from planting them. Scott Schwebke in the Orange County Register -- 7/28/20