Los Angeles County’s political and business leaders have set a goal of July 4 for a “full” and “safe” re-opening of retail, restaurants and malls to emerge from coronavirus restrictions, officials said Tuesday, May 19.
The announcement came from a meeting between a business task force and Los Angeles County supervisors. It was immediately met with caution over how realistic that date is — as well as concern it wasn’t soon enough in some communities, where businesses and officials believe they can fully and safely open right now.
“Our aspiration is yes, we’d like to open sooner than later,” Supervisor Hilda Solis said Tuesday. “But we have to do it by measurement. We have to have scientific evidence and data and make sure everybody is adhering to the public health order.
“But I have to tell you, I have a great deal of concern that some people are not listening to that message.”
This week, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that over the weekend, the county’s public health inspectors canvassed 1,600 businesses and discovered 1,000 were not in compliance yet with the county’s stay-at-home and social distancing rules.
There were also reports of large crowds at local beaches, where visitors were also not adhering to social distancing requirements.
Those orders still require wearing masks, standing 6 feet apart, curbside-sale pick-ups and restrictions on crowding at local public hubs, such as beaches and parks.
Business, nonprofit and county leaders on the newly formed Economic Resiliency Task Force — designed to recommend ways to restart the humbled economy — on Tuesday lamented the hit to the region’s business sectors.
With pressure mounting to loosen such restrictions, task force leaders said the region is facing severe financial pain, reflected in a report from Bill Allen, president of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., confirming there have been more than 1 million unemployment claims filed in L.A. County to date.
And more than 75% of the projected job losses have an average annual earning of less than $50,000, with restaurants and retail industries hit the hardest, according to officials.
It was enough to spur the target date of July 4th to get what leaders called a “full or staged reopening of retail, restaurants and malls.”
“We’re all aiming for a date our businesses are going to be able to open safely,” Ferrer said. “It’s always helpful to have a target date in mind. We can actually get to that date and have a lots of different sectors reopen. That’s certainly a goal we can reach. But we’re all going to need to do our part.”
County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said she understands the desire of many to reopen: “Many of the experts the county has assembled for this task force have been working hard to develop safe and efficient plans to revitalize their sectors as early as next month.”
In recent weeks, county officials have vowed to reopen businesses cautiously and gradually, allowing science and data to be their guides.
Until recently, the county’s safer-at-home orders had shut down all but “essential” businesses but have opened up certain retail operations and public spaces for business, with restrictions.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday broached the possibility that counties across the state could ease restrictions sooner if they meet certain criteria, paving the way for the imminent opening of dine-in restaurants and other services.
He also suggested that it may only be a matter of weeks before people can get their hair cut or worship in a church.
Newsom credited the change in rules to a decline in state hospitalizations in the last two weeks, the broader distribution of more protective gear for health care workers and the state’s ability to test more people for the virus.
But with its sheer size, Los Angeles County is poised to move much slower in fully meeting the governor’s new criteria, which established that counties have no more than 25 cases per 100,000 residents or no higher than an 8% positive rate among people tested for the coronavirus.
They also must have no higher than a 5% increase in hospitalizations throughout a one-week period or no more than 20 people hospitalized per day during a two-week period. The latter will ensure small counties don’t get penalized for just one or two extra hospitalizations.
With an overall infection positivity rate of 9%, Ferrer acknowledged the county simply would not be able to move beyond the “Stage 2” portion of the the easing of restrictions, which allowed retail businesses such as book stores and flower shops to open — with restrictions — along with certain other activities.
“We’re not quite there yet,” she said.
But the county is heading in the right direction, according to a Southern California News Group analysis.
For instance, the state’s new criteria for more easing of restrictions requires counties to show stable hospitalizations of COVID individuals on a seven-day average of daily percent change of less than 5%, or no more than 20 COVID hospitalizations on any single day in the past 14 days.
In L.A. County, the number of people hospitalized has been going down for most of the past week. The average daily change is -1.5%. In surrounding counties, such as San Bernarndino, Riverside and Orange, they also appear to be meeting this benchmark.
Another criteria requires counties to show fewer than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past 14 days, or less than 8% of all people tested reporting a positive result in the past seven days.
To meet the first option, L.A. County would need fewer than 2,563 new cases in the past 14 days. It has reported 11,707.
But it is meeting the second option: It has received results from 106,000 tests in the past seven days, and 6,326 were positive, for a rate of 6%.
In surrounding counties, none appear to be meeting the 25-cases-per-100,000 standard. Counties do appear to be meeting, or close to meeting, the 7-day test-positivity rate option, though.
But others in the county say that even if L.A. County is still moving at an intentionally deliberate pace, they’re ready to open.
“I think they should open today,” said Lancaster Mayor Rex Parris, who said he owns a law firm that is opening Wednesday. His community is in a region of the county that has relatively low case volumes. Local aerospace firms and a huge Air Force base have controlled the spread low with strict enforcement.
The need to ease restrictions and re-open is urgent, he said: “We’re talking about people who are running out of food.”
“We know how to keep reasonably safe. It does require an iron fist and enforcement, but that’s what leadership is — making sure you have as few rules as possible, but the ones you have you have to obey,” said Parris. “It’s not hard. We’ve been doing this since the beginning of civilization.”
Evident during L.A. County’s public health briefing Tuesday was a sense of urgency to re-open the economy, but while keeping public health goals in mind — a balance that Ferrer acknowledged hasn’t been easy to attain.
“We would like to open at a fast pace,” said Tracy Hernandez, Founding CEO of Biz Fed, an alliance of 190 businesses across the county. “Each sector, in differing parts of the county, we think there’s room for the regions to handle things differently.”
BizFed will send a letter to the county’s Board of Supervisors this week. Among a long list of suggestions for state and local leaders are:
- Reduce costs and regulations that make it difficult for businesses to re-start;
- Clarify what constitutes a “workplace injury” for COVID-19 cases in telework situations;
- Suspend AB 5, the controversial state law that places strict limits on free-lancers and “gig” workers;
- And consider dividing the mammoth county into “subsets” that could be considered for opening more quickly.
Hernandez said the county should ease pressure on businesses in certain areas, as long as it was clearly defined what “the rules of the road” are.
Others, however, urged caution about moving too fast — and about assessing the county by segments.
“I would think that because people travel in L.A. County, a city-to-city solution in my view would not make a lot of sense,” said Carsten Lange, professor of economics at Cal Poly Pomona, who has been tracking the public health data. “Let’s say City A has a high infection rate and City B has a low infection rate. … People in City A will simply travel to City B and then everybody gets infected.”
“I see it between long-term business interests and short-term,” he said. “If I can open tomorrow, that’s good for my profit tomorrow but if things go wrong and after one week I have to close for a long time, than I incur more damage than I would if had been a little more patient.”
In El Monte, which has reported 341 cases, Mayor Andre Quintero was focused on federal legislation just passed by the House of Representatives that would provide critical aid to cities, counties and states.
In a city where the average family makes less than $45,000 a year, Quintero was concerned that many of his constituents need help — and quick.
“Ultimately, our economy is reliant on consumer confidence,” Quintero said. “We can open everything up. But if people don’t feel confident that they’ll be safe, they may not go to the restaurant and to the bars.”
Monrovia Mayor Tom Adams could see the logic of dividing parts of the county into areas where physical easing could come faster. But he said that would be tough in the San Gabriel Valley, given the vast landscape where you wouldn’t necessarily know you were in another city if “it weren’t for the signs telling you,” he said.
Still, as a mayor, he said urging patience, assuring the safety of the populace and working toward reopening business is a difficult balancing act.
“I’m not a doctor but it’s hard to tell people,” Adams said, “no, you just need to stay home and not make money.”
Southern California News Group Data Reporter Nikie Johnson contributed to this report.
