California vs the Pandemic
The Pandemic is not technically over. Health officials worry, if enough people don’t get the new bilavent shot, that there will be another surge this winter. But vaccines are available, and people are dying in much lower numbers than in 2020. Stores, churches and sporting events are all open, and schools are back in session. So, with two years’ perspective, let’s look back on the 2020 pandemic to review how California responded vs what other states did, and what the outcomes of those decisions were.
The first cases of COVID-19 appeared in California in January of 2020. By March, cases were rising dramatically. On March 16th, the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area took a drastic step and ordered a complete shutdown. Businesses and schools closed for what was supposed to be three weeks. The State of California as a whole followed suit a week later.
The move was decried in some circles as a giant government overreach, but remember, California has the largest population of any state in the Union. There are more people in the Los Angeles Basin than live in Michigan and Alabama combined. If Wyoming was a city in California, it would be the fifth largest behind Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco. A contagious virus that spread through the air had the potential to devastate our densely packed cities.
That was exactly what happened to New York. They were a mere four days behind California in implementing their shutdown, and it was already too late. Their hospitals were quickly overrun, with patients on ventilators in the hallways of hospitals and portable morgues in the parking lot. People still died in California, but we never faced a wave like the one in New York.
My local school district took a week off to figure out how to do distance learning, and then they jumped in with both feet. They provided Chromebooks to every student in the district. To the families that did not have internet access, schools offered portable hotspots. It was rough at first, but it got better as they went along. When the new school year started in August of 2020, and we were still in lockdown, the distance learning program was far more robust. When vaccines were finally made available in the spring of 2021, teachers were one of the first groups to get shots. Right after that, they went back into the classroom to teach in person. Bottom line: we did not lose a single child or teacher to coronavirus during the pandemic.
My wife and I supported small businesses during the pandemic as best that we could, and we wore masks in respect of those essential workers who could not work from home. My wife got her vaccine with the other teachers, and when I was eligible, I got mine too. It was the right thing to do for us and for our community as a whole.
Meanwhile, President Trump was downplaying the severity of the pandemic, contradicting his own advisors and generally making a mess of things. Republican leadership across the country followed his lead. They resisted shutdowns, mask-wearing and vaccines, to the detriment of their constituents. The proof is in the numbers. In July, Scientific American reported a huge gap in mortality between Democratic leaning counties and Republican leaning counties. COVID-19 affected the entire country, but Democratic counties, following CDC guidelines, had fewer hospitalizations and deaths. Republican counties who flaunted those guidelines suffered tremendously.
Small businesses were hit hard by the shutdowns, and some children fell far behind their peers during distance learning. That has caused lingering anger and frustrations at the leaders who brought about the shutdown. Good leadership is about making difficult choices in times of crises. Our governor, health officials and school superintendents acted to save as many people as possible.
The first cases of COVID-19 appeared in California in January of 2020. By March, cases were rising dramatically. On March 16th, the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area took a drastic step and ordered a complete shutdown. Businesses and schools closed for what was supposed to be three weeks. The State of California as a whole followed suit a week later.
The move was decried in some circles as a giant government overreach, but remember, California has the largest population of any state in the Union. There are more people in the Los Angeles Basin than live in Michigan and Alabama combined. If Wyoming was a city in California, it would be the fifth largest behind Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco. A contagious virus that spread through the air had the potential to devastate our densely packed cities.
That was exactly what happened to New York. They were a mere four days behind California in implementing their shutdown, and it was already too late. Their hospitals were quickly overrun, with patients on ventilators in the hallways of hospitals and portable morgues in the parking lot. People still died in California, but we never faced a wave like the one in New York.
My local school district took a week off to figure out how to do distance learning, and then they jumped in with both feet. They provided Chromebooks to every student in the district. To the families that did not have internet access, schools offered portable hotspots. It was rough at first, but it got better as they went along. When the new school year started in August of 2020, and we were still in lockdown, the distance learning program was far more robust. When vaccines were finally made available in the spring of 2021, teachers were one of the first groups to get shots. Right after that, they went back into the classroom to teach in person. Bottom line: we did not lose a single child or teacher to coronavirus during the pandemic.
My wife and I supported small businesses during the pandemic as best that we could, and we wore masks in respect of those essential workers who could not work from home. My wife got her vaccine with the other teachers, and when I was eligible, I got mine too. It was the right thing to do for us and for our community as a whole.
Meanwhile, President Trump was downplaying the severity of the pandemic, contradicting his own advisors and generally making a mess of things. Republican leadership across the country followed his lead. They resisted shutdowns, mask-wearing and vaccines, to the detriment of their constituents. The proof is in the numbers. In July, Scientific American reported a huge gap in mortality between Democratic leaning counties and Republican leaning counties. COVID-19 affected the entire country, but Democratic counties, following CDC guidelines, had fewer hospitalizations and deaths. Republican counties who flaunted those guidelines suffered tremendously.
Small businesses were hit hard by the shutdowns, and some children fell far behind their peers during distance learning. That has caused lingering anger and frustrations at the leaders who brought about the shutdown. Good leadership is about making difficult choices in times of crises. Our governor, health officials and school superintendents acted to save as many people as possible.
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