The mayor of LA has sent a terrifying warning to Angelinos that ‘LA will never be completely open until we have a cure’, one day after the county health director extended its lockdown by three months.
Mayor Eric Garcetti gave a rambling interview with Good Morning America Wednesday in which he attempted to play down the lockdown extension through to August but sparked yet further confusion among angry residents over when it will reopen.
Garcetti backpedaled on comments made by LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer on Tuesday. She had said stay-at-home orders in LA will ‘with all certainty’ be extended for the next three months.
He said all she had meant was for people to ‘cover our faces, physically distance and that you’re safest working from and staying at home’.
But the mayor then went on to say LA will ‘never be completely open until we have a cure’ – something that medical experts have warned could take a long time.
This came hot on the heels of Garcetti’s equally confusing comments Tuesday where he urged people not to panic and that it is ‘not the case’ that LA will ‘stay exactly as we are for three months’ before adding ‘I think we know it’s going to be longer than three months.’
Mayor Eric Garcetti backpedaled on comments made by LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer on Tuesday where she said stay-at-home orders in LA will ‘with all certainty’ be extended for the next three months but then said ‘LA will never be completely open until we have a cure’
California Governor Gavin Newsom has allowed individual counties to implement their own lockdown measures based on the state of the pandemic in their areas and Garcetti first issued the city’s ‘Safer at Home’ emergency order on March 19.
LA continues to see a spike in coronavirus cases and deaths, with the county announcing another 961 cases and 45 deaths on Tuesday.
This takes the total death toll in LA to 1,613, meaning it makes up more than half of the 2,882 deaths across the whole of California.
Confirmed cases have reached 33,180, according to county figures as of 8pm Monday.
Despite LA continuing to be hard-hit by the outbreak, Angelinos have grown increasingly frustrated, with anti-lockdown protesters gathering outside Garcetti’s home demanding an end to stay-at-home orders.
The confusing messaging from officials has now fueled tensions further this week, with many residents taking to social media to voice their anger over the lack of clarity.
Speaking to GMA, Garcetti stopped short of denying reports that LA will be shuttered until August but insisted Ferrer’s comments were ‘taken out of context’.
‘I think we have to all recognize that we’re not moving beyond COVID-19, we’re learning to live with it,’ said Garcetti.
‘It’s important not to overreact but it’s important to take this serious because it’s as dangerous today as it was the first day it arrived in our cities and our country.
‘So quite frankly there’s no so-called open state or open country that doesn’t continue to have health orders telling us to cover our faces, physically distance and to tell people that you’re safest working from and staying at home – that’s all the county health director was saying and we can’t expect that to disappear in a matter of weeks or even a few months.’
Garcetti gave a rambling interview to Good Morning America Wednesday downplaying that LA’s lockdown will continue until August and saying the city is ‘learning to live with coronavirus, not move beyond it’
The mayor went on to say the county was ‘learning a lot of really important lessons about how to safely reopen sectors and places and we have to assess each of those steps.’
‘Then we give three or four weeks time to see if there’s any additional spread, are we endangering more people and how can we keep our most vulnerable safe,’ he added.
‘So we’re learning to live with it at the same moment that we’re also learning the lessons of how to do that.’
When asked whether LA schools and universities will return in person, after the California state university system announced it would not be reopening classes on campus, Garcetti provided little clarity.
‘I hope for our K through 12 schools we will have some sense of opening but it won’t be in the way we’ve known schools in the past,’ he responded.
‘It might be fewer days a week, it might be staggered because we have to maintain that physical distance and we have to make sure for our vulnerable children some of them won’t be able to go back to school for some time.
‘We have to tell the hard truths and protect our people.’
Ferrer had warned Tuesday that the county will need access to more ‘tools’ such as testing to bring the outbreak under control before lockdown rules can be eased.
Just 240,000 of the 10 million residents have been tested for the virus so far, with around 12 percent testing positive.
But Garcetti told GMA he was ‘very proud’ of the current situation around testing, saying LA is ‘doing probably more tests than anywhere in the country right now’.
‘We’re doing probably more testing than anywhere in the country now – we have a capacity of 20,000 tests a day just in LA county while the country is doing 300,000 tests a day and we’re just 3 percent of the population,’ he said.
‘And we have to keep that going, we have to make that regular – for kids to go back to school we need testing, for workers to get back to work we need testing.’
Garcetti’s comments came after he gave an equally baffling interview to CNN Tuesday where he appeared to switch back and forth between denying lockdown will continue until the summer and then saying it will actually go on even longer.
‘I want to reassure people because I think there was a lot of panic suddenly the headlines said we’re all going to stay exactly as we are for three more months when that is not the case,’ Garcetti told CNN’s Jake Tapper Tuesday after Ferrer’s comments first emerged.
Garcetti also retweeted a statement released by LA County Public Health which pulled back on the comments made by Ferrer Tuesday
‘I think quite simply she’s saying that we’re not going to fully reopen Los Angeles and probably anywhere in America without any protections or any health orders in the next three months.’
The mayor then muddied the water by saying: ‘I think we know it’s going to be longer than three months.’
LA County Public Health issued a statement pulling back on the comments made by Ferrer Tuesday.
‘L.A. County is continuing its progress on the road to recovery, with planned reopening of beaches for active recreation and an expansion of permitted retail activities coming tomorrow. While the Safer at Home orders will remain in place over the next few months, restrictions will be gradually relaxed under our 5-stage Roadmap to Recovery while making sure we are keeping our communities as safe as possible during this pandemic,’ said Ferrer in a statement on the department website and shared by Garcetti on social media.
Garcetti’s rapid backtracking sparked yet more confusion and anger among LA residents over what the reopening plans are
‘We are being guided by science and data that will safely move us forward along the road to recovery in a measured way – one that allows us to ensure that effective distancing and infection control measures are in place.
‘We’re counting on the public’s continued compliance with the orders to enable us to relax restrictions, and we are committed to making sure that L.A. County is in the best position to provide its 10 million residents with the highest level of wellness possible as we progressively get back to normal.’
DailyMail.com has reached out to LA County Public Health and Mayor Garcetti’s office for comment.
The rapid backtracking from officials sparked yet more confusion and anger among residents over what LA’s reopening plans are.
Frustrated residents took to Twitter to vent over the yo-yoing, with many describing the mayor’s intervention as ‘back peddle’.
LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer (pictured) announced during a Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday that the stay-at-home orders will ‘with all certainty’ be extended for the next three months as deaths and cases rise across LA
‘@LACountyBOS hmmm. Partial back peddle. What was said was said. Context was clear. Y’all just didn’t expect that blowback,’ one person tweeted.
Another added: ‘Michael Jackson still does the back-pedal better though.’
Others raised concerns that the people still have no clear direction around when the county will reopen.
‘Dr. Ferrer did not say a few months, she said three. Your constituents, honest, law abiding citizens who have followed the guidelines set forth during the quarantine are justifiably terrified. They deserve clarification. Not tomorrow, today,’ one person tweeted.
Another also voiced frustration at the lack of a plan: ‘Its starting to feel like there is no plan. I mean the fact that we have to wear a mask hiking makes no sense.’
Surfers walk on the beach on the first day of the reopening of LA County beaches Wednesday
Beaches can reopen Wednesday but for limited activities including surfing, running, walking and swimming
The death toll in LA has reached 1,617 – making up more than half of the 2,882 deaths across the whole of California
Garcetti went into damage control Wednesday after health director Ferrer announced during a Board of Supervisors meeting that LA will keep its stay-at-home orders in place through to August as infections and deaths continue to rise.
‘I agree 100 percent that this is a really good opportunity to continue to be driven by the data,’ Ferrer said.
‘We know with all certainty that we would be extending health officer orders for the next three months.’
Ferrer said the shocking timeline would only change if LA sees a ‘dramatic change to the virus and tools at hand’.
While other parts of the state have recorded a decline in daily infections and deaths, LA continues to record a growth in both areas.
Ferrer said the aim is to ease restrictions over the coming months but that this will only happen if the rates of infections and deaths decline.
‘Our hope is that by using the data, we’d be able to slowly lift restrictions over the next three months,’ she said.
The county also needs to have access to more ‘tools’ such as testing to bring the outbreak under control, she added.
LA residents have been voicing their anger over the stay-at-home orders, with anti-lockdown protesters marching on Garcetti’s residence Saturday demanding the county reopens and businesses are able to get back up and running.
At least 100 protesters were seen packed in outside the mayor’s Hancock Park residence, waving American flags and holding up banners.
Anti-lockdown protesters marched on Garcetti’s residence Saturday demanding an end to lockdown rules and for the county’s businesses to get back up and running
At least 100 protesters were seen packed in outside the mayor’s Hancock Park residence, waving American flags and holding up banners
Few people were pictured wearing masks and social distancing guidelines were flouted at the rally.
Demonstrators held aloft banners with slogans including ‘The shut down is killing us’, ‘Open our churches’ and ‘Contact tracing is 1984’.
The City of Angels started relaxing some restrictions last week.
Parks, hiking trails and golf shops reopened Saturday and nonessential businesses started operating curbside pickup.
Beaches will reopen Wednesday but only for surfing, running, walking and swimming, with sunbathing banned and people required to wear masks when not in the water.
On Monday, Ferrer told LA residents to prepare for the likelihood that the county’s reopening will not coincide with the rest of the state.
‘Literally half the cases and half the deaths are happening in LA County right now,’ she said during Monday’s briefing.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has repeatedly said different counties should take different measures based on the localized extent of the contagion.
And if Garcetti sticks with his aim that LA cannot reopen until a vaccine or treatment is found, any further easing of restrictions could be some time away.
Even some of the most optimistic estimates for when a vaccine will be available are not until late fall.
Dr Fauci said Tuesday scientists aim to determine if a successful coronavirus vaccine has been found by ‘late fall and early winter’.
A drive-thru testing site in Woodland Hills in LA. 240,000 of the 10 million LA residents have been tested for the virus so far, and around 12 percent have tested positive
In his testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Fauci said scientists are already testing possible vaccines in a phase one clinical trial with an eye of going to phase two this summer.
‘If we are successful, we hope to know that in the late fall and early winter,’ he said.
Fauci also said at least eight vaccines are currently being tested, while he reinforced warnings that reopening the US ‘will see some cases reappear.’
‘There is no doubt even under the best of circumstances, when you pull back on mitigation, you will see some cases appear,’ Fauci warned.
Several parts of California have been noticing a downward slope in cases and deaths, and Newsom started relaxing rules across the state last week.
Some businesses including clothing, sporting goods, florists and other retail stores reopened for curbside pickup.
Newsom then announced Tuesday that offices where telework is not possible can reopen with social distancing modifications.
Malls and outlets will be allowed to offer curbside pickup and outdoor museums, car washes, pet grooming and dog walking can also resume operations, the governor announced.
It is not yet clear when the changes to rules will take effect.
California was among the first states to go into lockdown with some of the strictest measures in the country.
Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured) started relaxing some rules across the state last week but warned some counties need to be slower than others in easing rules
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM WILL NOT REOPEN CAMPUSES IN THE FALL
The California State University System has announced it will not be reopening classes on campus for the fall 2020 semester.
The system, which runs 23 campuses and educates around 482,000 students each year, instead plans to run most of its courses virtually.
Chancellor Timothy White announced the decision in a Zoom call with the board of trustees on Tuesday.
‘Virtual planning is necessary because it might not be possible for some students, faculty and staff to safely travel to campus,’ he said.
‘Said another way, this virtual planning approach preserves as many options for as many students as possible.’
White said some exceptions will be made where there are ‘compelling educational and research needs’ for in-person activity but safety precautions must be followed.
For example, research labs can be run on campus but classes must be small and students must wear personal protective equipment, White said.
The move comes after Dr. Anthony Fauci announced Tuesday that it is unlikely the US will have a treatment or vaccine for coronavirus by the start of the school year.
The California State University. The California State University System has announced it will not be reopening classes on campus for the fall 2020 semester