The death toll in California’s coronavirus is still increasing. Vaccination rates remain low. And some of the residents are losing confidence in their governor.
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, finds himself in an increasingly precarious political position: a Republican-led recall movement is gaining support from far-right groups, as well as mainstream Republicans and some Silicon Valley bigwigs. And while it may not succeed in unsettling him, even long-term allies are questioning his leadership in the last, deadliest phase of the crisis.
He was considered a national hero in the early months of the pandemic, but Newsom’s job rating has dropped in recent weeks. Just under a third of voters surveyed by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies rated the governor’s overall handling of the pandemic well, while 44% said he was doing poorly. This is a complete reversal from September, when 49% of respondents through the institute said Newoms was doing an excellent or good job – and 28% rated him poorly.
Criticism came from all sides. Lawmakers are divided over its decision to revoke local residence permits a week after the state surpassed 3 million coronavirus cases. Health professionals are concerned that some of his recent health guidelines deviate from established and emerging scientific research. He argued with teachers’ unions and parents about when and how to reopen the state’s public schools. Activists say he is letting down Latino and Black residents, Californians with disabilities and essential workers who are dying at exorbitant rates. And unemployed Californians, struggling to access unemployment benefits, cursed the bureaucratic sluggishness of the administration.
Newsom’s announcements about the economy, the distribution of vaccines or the reopening of the school made many people across the country increasingly feel uneasy about the serious situation as the pandemic progressed.
Amy Arlund, an ER nurse in the Central Valley, said she was outraged that hospitals were still short of staff and equipment. “Trust has been broken, especially with our government officials, our leaders and the organizations and agencies that are meant to protect us,” Arlund said. “It feels like our expenses.”
Four of her staff at Kaiser Fresno Hospital have died as a result of Covid-19, Arlund said, including a fellow nurse who contracted the virus last summer after the hospital was so short on PPE and staff the use of homemade face shields made of plastic sheets. and electrical tape.
For Héctor Manuel Ramírez, a Los Angeles disability rights lawyer who worked on a behavioral health task force launched by the governor last year, Newsom’s announcement was that the state was in an effort to distribute vaccines. to speed up, people would start prioritizing according to age. , rather than a profession or medical history.
The news comes as Ramírez prepares funeral arrangements for their brother, Eduardo.
Eduardo was 35 and had a lot of immune weakening due to AIDS, and Ramírez, their family and friends were anxiously watching the state’s chaotic vaccination of vaccines in the hope that his turn would come soon.
It did not. Eduardo died – the fourth of Ramírez’s family to succumb to Covid-19.
Ramírez said Newsom, unlike many of his peers in other states, has made a strong commitment to address health inequalities. ‘I regularly listened to the governor’s coronavirus updates, and his words always brought hope. Now I feel deceived, I feel used. I feel like I am without leadership, ”they said.
“There was so much fear and desperation in my community,” they added. “Whether intentionally or unintentionally, it feels like our leaders have forgotten about us.”
Criticism has also arisen over the state’s handling of reopening of schools and unemployment assistance. As many of the state-owned enterprises reopen, Newsom has been caught in crossfire between parents of 6 million public schoolchildren eager to get their children back in class, and teacher unions worried it is not safe enough to return.
Newsom proposed a $ 2 billion plan to help reopen schools in the spring at the end of last year, but school leaders, unions and lawmakers said it was inadequate. In a heated meeting with the California School Administrators Association last week, Newsom responded to demands that all teachers receive vaccinations before returning to personal schooling: ‘If we want to find reasons not to open, we find many reasons. ”
Meanwhile, the state’s unemployment agency came under fire last month over a serious audit, which found that millions of unemployed California people still have access to unemployment benefits, the agency paid out more than $ 11 billion in fraudulent claims.
During a hearing Wednesday, lawmakers from both parties were furious that voters were queuing up at food banks and sleeping in their cars while the state neglected their support. “Californians are frustrated, they are furious, they are fed up,” said Rudy Salas, a Democratic assembly representing parts of the rural Central Valley.
To make life-and-death decisions about who should get the vaccine first, and the balance between the need to address the state’s economic crisis and its health crisis, and distinguish between what is safe and what is not safe in the midst of a one-time pandemic is, of course, impossibly difficult, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a specialist in infectious diseases at the UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco.
For much of last year, while Donald Trump denied the seriousness of the pandemic and smuggled false miracle cures, Newsom and other governors became “beacons of leadership for the entire country,” Chin-Hong continued. Another poll by Morning Consult found that although Newsom’s job rating has dropped in recent weeks, it is now more popular than before the pandemic.
“But as the pandemic progresses, people have higher expectations,” Chin-Hong said – expecting leaders to explain the reasoning behind public health decisions.
Newsom failed to do so two weeks ago when he suddenly announced he would lift the state’s most restrictive stay-at-home orders, Chin-Hong said. Even state legislators said they were taken off guard.
“If you think state legislators were blinded and confused about the shifting and confusing guidelines for public health, you would be correct,” Laura Friedman, of the House of Commons, said after Newsom was announced. “If you think we in Sacramento were quiet about it, you would be wrong.”
Health workers said it did not help that Newsom initially kept the data and reasoning behind the changing rules and guidelines opaque. ‘The announcement of reopening was so sudden. “People were so confused because outside hospitals there were mobile mortuaries full of the corpses of people who had died of Covid-19,” said Chin-Hong. “It really made people feel unsafe.”
“There’s definitely a communication problem,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. “We find that about half of the public say they do not trust the governor.”
Newsom’s office did not respond to several requests for comment..
Many of the groups that questioned the governor’s recent policies said he could easily earn their trust if he was willing to work with them.
Christian Ramirez, a policy director for SEIU-USWW, a union representing more than 45,000 California service workers, said he was excited to hear that Newsom announced a $ 600 plan to low-income Californians last month, including: to send undocumented immigrants. “There has been a willingness on the part of Governor Newsom to ensure that essential workers, regardless of their immigration status, do not have to take care of themselves,” Ramirez said. But the proposal has not yet been signed.
Ramirez said he would like the governor to work with unions and advocacy groups to keep his promises. “We know how to reach our community. We have mobilized a record number of people to go to the polls and vote in the recent election,” he said. The union can easily utilize its network to quickly help hundreds of thousands of workers fill out the paperwork for unemployment benefits, or to sign up for vaccinations. “We do not expect the governor to do it alone – and we are prepared to stand with him,” Ramirez said.