COVID-19 State Policy Update 04.30.20

Governor Gavin Newsom held his daily briefing and provided an update on California’s response to the pandemic. He opened with, “This has been a week with some optimism.”  The Governor shared that as the state begins to work through the framework for reopening the state over the next few weeks, including expanding the definition of essential, beginning to expand the opportunities for more retail, more manufacturing of nonessential goods, and considering opening up spaces all across the state that have otherwise been closed, we have reason for optimism.

The Governor stated that he has had “wonderful conversations” with “elected officials, federal representatives, Democrats, Republicans from all across the state of California”, on issues ranging from regionalism to variances and that as we look to modifications to the stay at home order the Governor stressed, that “one thing has become crystal clear, when we talk about economic opportunities, economic growth and reopening with modifications to the economy in a safe way in the state of California. Not only should we be driven by data and public health as a predicate and we will be, but we also have to be driven by considerations of workforce.

An “innovative platform” that the Department of Social Services has “put up for childcare in this state,” was announced by the Governor today.  “An effort that’s been, and I’m not exaggerating, almost two decades in the making, these challenges, they birth a necessity and innovation,” the Governor stated. The state thus far, working with partners, has opened 432 pop-up childcare facilities throughout the state.

The new childcare platform can be found at: https://covid19.ca.gov/childcare/  A copy of the press release can be found here.  

According to the Governor, the funding specifics for this initiative will be released during the May 14th release of the revised state budget, commonly referred to as the “May Revise.”  Newsom said, this portal is profoundly important. “This portal is a tool to navigate. A tool where we do a lot of the vetting, we do a lot of the research, we do an assessment that is dynamic, in real time is updated that allows you to go in, type in your zip code, and then see pop-ups of all of these childcare facilities in your area. Health and safety criteria, whether or not they’re being met, licensing.” He also shared that this portal was inspired by two unions in the state of California, UDW and SEIU, that have a version of this called Carina Cares. 

During the briefing, the Governor turned to Kim Johnson, Director of the Department of Social Services. Ms. Johnson stated that a $50 million investment going to this program will service 20,000 individuals in accessing childcare subsidies across our state and that the program, “is for those essential workers and it’s also for our vulnerable populations.”

Newsom announced that he met with faith-based leaders a few weeks ago and that “They wanted some clarification, which we did update as it relates to social services. So many of our faith community providing critical social services, essential social services for our community, including substantively for those with behavioral health issues, our homeless brothers and sisters, seniors, substance abuse programs, and we wanted to make sure that was clarification of those being essential services and that guidance was updated on the [covid19.ca.gov] site accordingly.”

One of the other interesting announcements today by the Governor was that the state’s site now has “about two dozen additions” related to questions received on outside activities and social distancing including: hiking, golfing, horseback riding, “playing catch with your kids, kick a soccer ball around, those kinds of activities.”

It was announced yesterday that the Governor had ordered a closure of beaches in Orange County. Newsom stated, “Today, we want to make some clarifications. We’re going to do a hard close in that part of the state just in the Orange County area…specific issues on some of those beaches have raised alarm bells. People that are congregating there that weren’t practicing physical distancing, that may go back to their community outside of Orange County and may not even know that they contracted the disease and now they’ve put other people at risk, put our hospital system at risk and alike.” He further stated, “Why undo all the great progress? Let’s move this state forward together.”

On testing, California has conducted more than 625,000 tests. The Governor stated that the state is on track “by the end of this month to [conduct] 25,000 tests” a day.

On community surveillance, the Governor said, “we have to do a lot more on community surveillance, that’s the predicate of moving from phase two to phase three and expanding the portfolio of essential/non-essential services.” 

During the Q&A portion, the Governor was asked about a recent statement by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, yesterday on an earnings call, who described the state’s stay at home orders as fascist and said that would offer a serious risk to his company. Newsom replied, “Good people can disagree. We’ve been guided by science, data, facts, not only on the ground here in the state of California, across this country, but guided by the prevalence of this disease around the rest of the world. Guided not just by headlines and trend lines, but by real data, real evidence and China and Asia broadly, Italy, Spain, other parts of the globe.” 

The Governor closed the briefing with, “as I began today’s comments, let me end them in that spirit…progress has been made.” He then remined us that, “you can continue to participate in that endeavor by not only practicing social distancing and physical distancing and abiding by local and state guidance, but by potentially contributing your time and your attention to causes near and dear to you and communities near and dear to you all around the state www.californiansforall.ca.gov.”

Later this afternoon, Newsom signed an executive order that will “allow adults to obtain marriage licenses via videoconferencing.” The text of the Governor’s executive order can be found here and a copy can be found here.

California’s Covid-19 numbers today included a 5.2% increase in the number of new positive cases (48,917 total cases), modest increases in hospitalizations, ICUs, and sadly 95 deaths due to Covid-19 in the last 24hours. That brings the total deaths to 1,982 (a 5% increase).

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