Los Angeles Mayor Eric Gercetti (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
Los Angeles Mulls Stricter Business Restrictions Due To Rise in COVID-19 Cases
Mayor Garcetti warns more limitations, closures possible due to new surge
By Evan Symon, December 19, 2020 8:36 am
On Thursday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the city may enact stricter business limits and more closures for certain types of businesses if COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise.
Los Angeles County, which reported over 16,000 new cases on Friday alone, has had some of the highest rates of infection in the world in the past few weeks, seeing more cases per day than entire countries such as Mexico and Spain. As there are now over 600,000 confirmed cases in the county it has now infected, as the county has 10 million people, 1 in 20 residents who have had it at some point since March.
COVID-19 Daily Update:
December 18, 2020
New Cases: 16,504 (596,721 to date)
New Deaths: 96 (8,757 to date)
Current Hospitalizations: 5,100 pic.twitter.com/OGrgZf1u6J— LA Public Health (@lapublichealth) December 19, 2020
The rate has gotten so bad that ICU availability at LA County hospitals hit 0 on Thursday.
For Mayor Garcetti, the county’s battle with COVID-19 also took a personal turn on Thursday when the Mayor revealed that his 9-year-old daughter, Maya, had the virus.
“On Monday, while I was at work, my wife called to let us know that our beloved daughter, Maya, wasn’t feeling very well,” Garcetti said during an at-home speech on Thursday. “And after she came down with a fever, we had her tested for COVID-19, and her results came back positive. Maya is doing fine and her symptoms are mild. My wife and I have both been tested and our test results have come back negative. Our family is incredibly careful and what’s happening in my home this week is playing out across Los Angeles and this country.”
Join me live for the latest updates on this critical phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and our local response to keep Angelenos safe. https://t.co/mSnl3vTXz8
— MayorOfLA (@MayorOfLA) December 18, 2020
The Mayor then segued into the hard COVID-19 data for the entire county.
“We’re seeing a seven-day positivity rate of an alarming 19.6%. Some of our sites have a positivity rate as high as 30%,’ added the Mayor during his announcement. “For L.A. County, the seven-day rate was 13.7%.”
Public health worry, economic worry
Mayor Garcetti also noted that due to these statistics, as well as other grim facts such as LA seeing around 100 people dying a day now, that the city is now considering greater COVID-19 restrictions due in part to the extra strain that has been put upon hospitals in the county.
“Some hospitals can convert non-emergency spaces into ICU spaces, but other hospitals can’t,” noted Mayor Garcetti before mentioning that ambulances, which have been waiting in some cases for 5 and 7 hours outside of ER’s to drop off patients, have been rerouted often in recent days.
“The Mayor said that he may be calling for an emergency declaration because of this spread,” noted Dr. Monica Chan, a doctor in Southern California who has seen her share of COVID-19 patients, in a Globe interview. “Do it. Do whatever is needed. I know people are hurting for work, but they’re not the ones seeing people struggling to breathe and dying alone on a ventilator after their lungs were destroyed.”
Others worry what this would do to the city economically.
“Garcetti was really vague about closures,” LA small business finance coach Geraldo Montez told the Globe. “Who knows how far a declaration would go? It likely wouldn’t stop all take out and delivery, but any store where you could physically walk in would likely be down for the count. There’s really just not that more to close without doing massive damage, and they’re actually mulling it over.
“We don’t want to see deaths here, but if the government isn’t stepping up in protecting businesses or offering relief of sorts, what are they to do?”
Garcetti said that while the economy is important, he doesn’t want mass deaths to occur in the city either.
“We put in stricter measures so we don’t have to have those harrowing visions of doctors deciding who gets that last ventilator and who doesn’t. If this carries on for the next three to five weeks, our health care system will have nothing left.”
Should COVID-19 rates and death figures stay high, advanced emergency orders could be given as soon as after Christmas.
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Wonder how many elderly died this year from heart attacks, and strokes from all this stress, fear mongering by main stream media, corrupt politicians like Garcetti, Newsom, etc., and being forced into isolation for too many months? Wonder how many died from the very toxic ingredients from flu shots? Praying for all! Revelation 6:15-17, “And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men (politicians, etc), and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
Romans 12:19, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
I wonder how many flu cases there are in L.A.? Nobody seems to be talking about how low flu cases are this year. A few weeks ago it was reported flu cases are down 98% in the U.S. Last week in San Diego County it was reported that there are 36 (thirty six) cases of flu so far this flu season when that county gets an average of 17,000 cases in a normal season. At this time of the year hospitals are at 90% to 95% of capacity due to flu and pneumonia.
Yes, John, as you know, Annual Seasonal Flu is apparently being labeled COVID now. Also falling off your roof is probably being labeled COVID now. Heart attacks, strokes, fatal car accidents: COVID, COVID, COVID. Might as well be, who knows?! Financial and political incentives are responsible for this, but in addition to politicians’ and bureaucrats’ desire to confuse the public, we really have NO IDEA what the important numbers for COVID (or anything else) actually are. Thanks a bunch for the assistance, well-paid “leaders!”
Showandtell they are cooking the books on these numbers bigtime! 16,504 new cases in one day? What they do typically is hold numbers for a few days and then release them all at once. And because you test positive does not mean you come down with symptoms and to be hospitalized. I don’t believe any of these numbers.
I know. I agree that the numbers are not believable.
John, take a look at Katy Grimes latest article about this topic:
https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/squishy-data-calculations-surrounding-deaths-associated-with-covid-19/
Don’t EVER believe anything coming put of Little Eric’s mouth…
Why didn’t he leave the Convention Center open for covid overflow. Why didn’t he leave the hospital ship in San Pedro?
Friend works in numerous hospitals as a vendor and he was recently showed the inside of an ICU. Only ONE patient..
Little Eric is lying…
HI there.. the CDC just merged the pneumonia, flu and covid numbers together called PIC.. and it is referred to as covid numbers.. They did this before in 2001 and 2009 to get people to get the flu shot. RFK posted this info on his instagram page.
Screw Garrett! Lying little weasel politician. No respect for that nutless wonder.
Enough with bankrupting small businesses and throwing people on the unemployment line. The past lockdowns and policies instituted by these control freaks HAVE NOT WORKED. Let’s not allow these politicians to continue with this nonsense. ALL businesses that employ people, who need their jobs to pay bills and put food on their families’ table, are ESSENTIAL BUSINESSES to those employees and their families. ENOUGH of the tyrannical government edicts. If Garcetti and Newsom go on another shutdown, let’s also stop their paychecks and those of the city council and legislature. They need to start getting hit in their own wallets to get a “feel” for what the little people they disrespect are going through. And in addition to that, these buffoons that destroy everything they touch should NEVER see elected office again.
Maybe he should admit that lockdowns don’t work? Only two things get rid of viruses, herd immunity and vaccines. Nothing else. NPIs are only effective at the very beginning of pandemics. Lockdowns don’t work anywhere.
A family friend died from liver cancer last weekend in LA City…
Never had Covid…even with a compromised immune system..
We’re awaiting his death certificate and I’ll bet that cause of death will at least include Covid-19 if not indeed the primary cause…
My wife, his business manager, is going to raise holy hell if that’s the case…
And Garcetti is fudging the numbers as now everything is the Covid boogeyman, and the flu has been mysteriously eradicated this year…
Don’t EVER believe anything coming put of Little Eric’s mouth…
Why didn’t he leave the Convention Center open for covid overflow. Why didn’t he leave the hospital ship in San Pedro?
Friend works in numerous hospitals as a vendor and he was recently showed the inside of an ICU. Only ONE patient..
Little Eric is lying…