Riverside County has the 2nd most COVID cases & deaths in California but its supervisors just voted to rescind public health orders.
A patient is removed from Magnolia Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Riverside this month after more than three dozen residents tested positive for coronavirus and the nursing staff did not show up for work.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times
Here are the details from the Desert Sun. It’s outrageous. It’s should make your blood boil.
Maybe the supervisors forgot about the death of Deputy Terrell Young, 52, a 15-year veteran and the department’s first to die from COVID-19. He leaves behind his wife of 31 years and four children.
Perhaps they need to see the photo of David Werksman, 51, a Riverside County Sheriff’s deputy who was with the department for 22 years. Better yet, the supervisors should hear from his wife and three children who are still alive.
Of course these deaths happened WAY back in April, so I guess they become just another number.
Do the supervisors need to know that this hits more than old people? Here’s the story of 21 year old Valeria Viveros, who worked as a nursing assistant at a skilled nursing facility that had an outbreak.
We can show the supervisors of the communities around Riverside the photos. We can show them the data that it’s not just olds and POC who are getting hit because gasp, *White People* are dying and that seems to make a difference to some.
But the bottom line is that Riverside supervisors voted to rescind the state’s emergency orders. Why? Who are they really listening to? What are those people’s reasons? And finally, if the people in the community and those around them agree this is a terrible, deadly decision, “What can be done?”
The friend who tipped me off to this story lives in Palm Springs, right next to Riverside County. His question was, “How do I stop my city supervisors from doing what Riverside supervisors did?”
First they should know that lawful Executive Orders have been defied. Public health reopen guidelines in the state of California were ignored. (See EO N-60-20, and Health and Safety Code sections 120125, 120140, 131080, 120130(c), 120135, 120145, 120175 and 120150, ) PDF Link signed by Sonia Y Angell, MD, MPH, State Public Health Officer & Director California Department of Public Health
The Riverside county supervisors couldn’t meet the reopen guidelines. They know there will be consequences but they don’t care!
From the article:
“Supervisor Jeff Hewitt implored the supervisors to vote to lift all restrictions — including the state’s — immediately.
Regarding the county’s orders, he said he wanted to drop all COVID-related restrictions and trusted residents and businesses to make decisions to secure health and safety.
“Although he understood the state had threatened to withhold disaster funds from counties that have defied Newsom’s staged plan, Hewitt scoffed at his fellow supervisors’ plan to negotiate with Newsom on reopening criteria.”
Hewitt trusts that businesses would make decisions to protect their employees. Without any consequences? He gives this BS libertarian answer why they would.
“They will do what they need to to attract the most customers,” he said of county businesses. “Even though I feel like I don’t need a mask — I don’t like a mask, that’s my personal choice — I’ll carry one around all the time because there’ll be a lot of businesses I want to go in that’ll require me to wear a mask.”
Well what if they want to attract COVID deniers? There’s lot’s of money in selling to rich idiots, but what about the non-idiots who have to breath the same air?
As I told my friend, these people can’t be convinced with photos of the dead, then need to be sanctioned.
Also, when you listen to Hewitt during the supervisor meeting he reveals that it’s the business owners who are telling him what to do. Will he name them? Could the media talk to them so that the public can know who is putting their profits before people’s lives?
They people won’t hear from the business owners with real power telling the supervisors what to do because they want to be behind the scenes. They don’t want to take the heat from the public. They don’t want to have a conversation with the head of the nursing homes in their community who can ask the family of the dead to call them on the phone.
They aren’t going to voluntarily reveal who they are and face the majority of the people in the community and the ones around Riverside. They expect Hewitt to take the heat, and then see if they should back down.
I have a whole piece coming noting how the anti-lockdown protesters and the “ReOpen” people are using the same tactics and methods as the gun lobby groups. There are ways to beat them, but it’s just insane that people even have do this.