Fresno and other counties urging Newsom to back down on reopening requirements
UPDATE: Fresno County sent its letter dated Friday.
Central Valley counties, including Fresno, plan to request that California officials ease requirements so the region can move to the next phase of recovery and reopening from the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Rais Vohra, interim health officer for the Fresno County Department of Public Health, said area counties have jointly crafted a letter they hope to send to Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Department of Public Health Officer Dr. Sonia Angell before the end of this week. In the letter, he said, counties will ask state officials to “reconsider the metrics they are using” to allow local counties to move forward and reopen some businesses.
“We’re just hoping that doesn’t fall on deaf ears and that that actually helps to advance this conversation and that we learn from them and that they learn from us about what our needs are and how we can move forward together,” Vohra said Wednesday during a media briefing.
What’s preventing Fresno County from moving forward to the next phase of reopening from the coronavirus pandemic is the number of new infections per day, as well as deaths being recorded in the county, he said. For Fresno County’s population, Vohra said, the state requires that it sees no more than seven new infections per day over a two-week period,
Fresno County has been seeing 30 to 40 new infections per day, Vohra said. Another metric requirement is that the county not have any COVID-19 deaths for two weeks.
“The real disqualifiers for us here in Fresno County are that, according to the state, we just haven’t flattened the curve,” he said. “They want to see the number of new cases go way down.”
A third metric that’s disqualifying Fresno County is the amount of testing being carried out, which Vohra said the county should meet in a couple of weeks.
“These are really hard metrics,” Vohra said of all the requirements. “They are quite restrictive.”
He said the shelter-in-place orders and the various “disruptions that we’ve had to endure in the last couple of months are not sustainable.”
Vohra said his department has been having conversations about how the county can move forward in a safe manner. On Wednesday, he said, meetings were held with restaurants and the business industry.
“We need to get into a new phase where we have a culture of caution, but also a culture where we can proceed with all of the business activities, social activities, other organizational activities and eventually educational activities,” he said. “We currently do not meet the metrics to move forward, but we feel that our capacity to meet the challenges of moving forward are in place, and we will be able to protect our health care system, as well as all of our populations, if we are able to move forward, but do so cautiously.”
Vohra said he understands people might be feeling frustrated with the current circumstances.
“I’m very frustrated, as I think everyone is, that we can’t move faster into a later phase of Phase 2, and that’s something that we just need to keep plugging away at,” he said.
The letter will be made public on Fresno County’s website after it’s sent to Newsom and Angell.
“There’s a lot of cooks making this dish, so I don’t want to over-promise, but I do believe that it’s going to get to Sacramento ... definitely by the end of the week,” Vohra said.
This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 8:36 PM with the headline "Fresno and other counties urging Newsom to back down on reopening requirements."
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