Gov. Newsom Grants a Sort-Of Re-Opening for Devastated California Businesses

Gov. Gavin Newsom teased late last week he would be granting a new green color tier to the California’s reopening plan, as the state just passed the two million mark on vaccinations.

We say “teased” because Newsom didn’t offer any specifics on the new green tier, but indicated it will be a final-final tier before a county can fully re-open.

However, it was only last August that Newsom shut down the idea of a green tier, indicating lockdowns may continue in perpetuity: “We don’t put a green (tier) because we don’t believe that there’s a green light that says go back to the way things were or back to a pre-pandemic mindset,” Newsom said. Is Gov. Newsom moving the goalposts again? What could possibly be in another tier except mandatory mask wearing, social distancing, and maintaining dining and bar restrictions forever?

“We are working, quite literally, on a green tier and have been now for a number of months, in anticipation of this bright light now at the end of this tunnel,” Newsom said at the press briefing last week. “And so we’re working on that. We’ll begin to socialize that.”

“Twenty-four of our 58 counties are now out of our [most] restrictive tiers. … As we start to reopen, as we get to 10, 15, 20 million vaccinations, get closer and closer to herd immunity, then we will start to make it clear that these tiers were temporary, they’re not permanent, and there’s something beyond orange and yellow — and that green tier will present itself,” Newsom said.

“You tear up when you see someone get a shot in the arm,” Newsom said while at a Southgate vaccination site last week.

Newsom said he would not be lifting mask mandates or capacity limits on public places anytime soon.

“California wants to double down on our progress, and we want to get through the next number of weeks so when you get to this magical place we are all waiting for, and that’s herd immunity, we can see a semblance of normalcy return to our day-to-day lives,” Newsom  said.

Bars and restaurants are sort-of allowed to re-open, but on a limited capacity, gyms at 10% capacity, personal care services limited capacity, which means businesses really can’t survive.

Now, the left is calling for “eradicating” the coronavirus, once again moving the goal posts. But this is a virus, and according to epidemiologists, eradicating it “near impossible.”

This looks and smells like another stall tactic by the governor. There is no scientific or medical reason not to open the state back up.

In an op ed for American Enterprise Institute in February, John Yoo and Scott Atlas wrote, “Americans accepted a broad — but temporary — lockdown of society to slow the pandemic a year ago. Yet many still live under unprecedented restrictions: business and school closures, travel bans, curfews, quarantines, limits on groups and mask mandates.”

“Still, our system doesn’t permit permanent dictatorial powers in the face of contrary data,” Yoo and Atlas said. “In California, for example, the governor can unilaterally exercise any and all authority vested in the state, such as to impose quarantines and curfews, ration goods and services and regulate or even prohibit any economic and social activity.”

They continue: “Many states have kept their restrictions, including those without sound basis. Schools, churches and offices remain closed in many blue states. Governors continue to make arbitrary distinctions: Big-box stores can sell the same goods that small shops can’t; bars close after specific hours, as if the virus works on a schedule; restaurants couldn’t operate indoors, even when Gov. Cuomo’s own data showed that they are responsible for a minuscule share of viral spread in New York.”

“Public support evaporates when edicts defy common sense.”

“It is in these inconsistencies that individual liberty has begun its comeback.”

“As the pandemic enters its second year, Americans will continue to demand evidence to justify the severe restrictions on their liberty,” they conclude. And in California, that appears to be culminating in a recall election of Gov. Newsom.

To see where your county falls in the color-coated tiers, go to COVID.ca.gov