California Counties and Businesses Clash with Governor Newsom on State’s Readiness Criteria for Re-Opening

California faces enormous challenges in the balance between protecting public health and re-opening its economy that has crushed thousands of small businesses.

The State’s Stage 2 Readiness Criteria released last week requires counties to have “No COVID-19 deaths in the past 14 days”. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer sent the following letter to Governor Gavin Newsom today in regards to the feasibility of this criteria.

The issue with a numerical not percentage-based criteria for counties is that the Governor’s proposal does not take county population into account. San Diego has had no new deaths since Friday, Orange County had 2 today, but Los Angeles had 39 deaths just today so could have to wait until 2021 to see any re-opening under this criteria. Rural California will probably be the only areas able to start re-opening any time soon.

Alameda County has had no new deaths in the last two days and is home to the Tesla controversy. Elon Musk has pledged to move Tesla operations out of California over the lockdown dispute with the county and re-opened today asking officials to arrest him.