Atwater will ask Newsom to lift COVID-19 rules. Some residents plead to ‘open Merced County’
Nearly seven weeks into the coronavirus pandemic, some Merced County residents seem to have reached their breaking point amid the state order mandating Californians stay home and non-essential businesses remain shut.
On Monday, the Atwater City Council agreed to send a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, asking him to modify the executive order so that small, rural cities like Atwater may reopen their local economy.
On a similar note, a majority of public comments at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting requested that government officials “open Merced County,” including reopening businesses and lifting social restrictions.
As of Tuesday, in Merced County there have been 116 total coronavirus infections since the pandemic began, with three deaths and 74 recoveries. On Tuesday, Mariposa County reported its first infection.
Each of the four Atwater City Council members voiced support for Mayor Paul Creighton to sign the letter asking Newsom to reconsider how restrictions may be doing more harm than good in small rural cities like Atwater.
“I understand that there’s still some fear, but at the same time we’re risking even greater things with the economy,” said Councilmember Brian Raymond. “As most people will admit, Atwater never fully came out of the initial recession. While we were getting close, this is just another big step back.”
Creighton said the change needs to happen in Atwater — and fast. If nothing changes within about 10 days, he fears the economic ramifications could be beyond recovery, he said.
“My biggest fear is that we lose so much of the small businesses and the tax revenue . . . if we don’t open back up, we’ll see crime like we’ve never seen before,” Creighton said. “People are really sick and tired of this, and you can’t just destroy people’s lives for what-ifs,” he added.
Creighton said Atwater has been aggressively ahead of preventative coronavirus efforts. He feels the city is ready to reopen under simple mitigation and best practices. Business owners know how to run their stores safely, he said.
“We need some direction and some help, but we also need to be opened up and not treated like San Francisco or New York,” Creighton said.
Residents have told Creighton that they cannot go another month, let alone day, under the existing restrictions. Reopening businesses would not only help residents financially, but also improve mental health, he said.
“We’ve smashed the curve,” he said. “It’s up to us to save ourselves,” he added.
Similar frustration expressed at Board of Supervisors meeting
At Tuesday’s Merced County Board of Supervisors meeting, nearly 500 Facebook Live comments flooded the gathering, which was streamed online.
Many people questioned the severity of the pandemic, skeptical of the justification for closing businesses. Others said the county should go against state orders.
Several comments were read aloud during the meeting. “The economic impact on our county is enormous,” one public comment from an unidentified person said. “Our rights are being completely ignored,” it added.
“We are tired of all the restrictions being placed on us to shop,” another unidentified comment said. “I do not want to wear a mask to go to the store. This is out of hand and needs to stop.”
Officials say County Public Health is caught between being empathetic to frustrated residents and complying with state orders.
“It is a state order, it is state-wide” said County CEO Jim Brown Tuesday. When Gov. Gavin Newsom’s March 19 executive order went into effect, local health officers were directed to follow, he said.
Supervisor Daron McDaniel said he recently spoke with the governor’s staff about transitioning to a regional-approach to coronavirus-related policies. “With a region, I think we can solve this a lot better than a blanket policy across the whole state,” he said.
That could allow room for restrictions in rural communities to soften, compared to higher density urban areas.
“During our conversations with the state as recently as this past weekend, they’ve encouraged all the counties to take a look at how they would define a region,” said County Public Health Director Dr. Rebecca Nanyonjo-Kemp.
She noted that traveling for jobs, work and play is common between Merced, Madera, Fresno, Mariposa and Stanislaus counties.
Another factor that is frustrating citizens is the state’s classification of business as either essential or nonessential, county officials said.
“The state is picking the winners and the losers right now,” said McDaniel.
Those categories fail to factor in risk, County Supervising Epidemiologist Dr. Kristynn Sullivan said. ‘
As a result, some “essential” business like crowded big-box stores that draw high levels of foot traffic — and thus higher risk of infection — are allowed to remain open. Meanwhile “non-essential” shops like small boutiques must stay closed — even though such shops draw substantially less foot traffic.
“With the frustration that we have seen is that residents, we ourselves would love to have this be implemented based on risk,” Sullivan said, noting that County Public Health has communicated this with the state.
McDaniel asked that small business owners with a plan to operate within certain safety parameters email their proposals to him, with the hope they could be approved eventually.
Robert Eyler, a professor of economics at Sonoma State University, presented the pros and cons of reopening the economy. Employment and tax revenue would rise in the short term, and could lead to innovation and entrepreneurship in the long term, he said.
However, that would also risk more infections overloading the healthcare system and a second wave of shutdowns leading to more economic setback. Local governments must find a balance between the benefits and risk, he said.
County Public Health stresses caution
While officials acknowledged residents’ frustrations, County Public Health’s update aimed to dispel faulty assertions used to support critiques of current restrictions.
One myth Sullivan disputed is that COVID-19 is comparable to a seasonal flu. Coronavirus surpassed the annual death rate of seasonal influenza by April 20, she said.
Sullivan also noted that while some say no residents with COVID-19 have been hospitalized, 10 residents have been hospitalized at facilities in and outside the county. This includes the three Merced County residents who died, she said.
“Research has shown across all of COVID-19 activity worldwide that the true hospitalization rate should be about 2% of the cases that we see,” Sullivan said. “Currently we’re sitting at about 9% of our cases being hospitalized. What that indicates is that . . . we’re not testing enough.”
That math puts Merced County cases closer to 450 than the reported 116, Sullivan said.
“Given all those limitations, we still have a very high case fatality rate in terms of our deaths per the number of cases that we have,” Sullivan said.
Merced County’s fatality rate is higher than Stanislaus and Fresno’s, where testing is more widespread, she said. If more non-fatal COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Merced County, the fatality rate would drop.
“This is another indication of our real lack of testing and our real lack of ability to clearly say what is happening in Merced County in regards to COVID-19,” Sullivan said.
The incomplete picture may lend to the notion that the pandemic is less widespread, officials say.
Sullivan said data shows the county did best with social distancing April 5-12, leading to a corresponding dip in cases 10 days later. Since then efforts have decreased, and could lead to a corresponding rise in cases, she said.
Case reported in Mariposa County
Mariposa County’s first case Tuesday comes a little over five weeks after the first case was confirmed in Merced County..
The first case in Mariposa has been identified as a 23-year old female, who is currently isolating at home. The case is confirmed community transmission from an area outside of Mariposa County.
The contact tracing team is currently investigating, according to a news release.
There is no evidence of community transmission within Mariposa County, according to the Mariposa County Health and Human Services Public Health Branch.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 6:34 PM.
