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California’s coronavirus death toll continues to climb. Its vaccination rates remain low. And some of its inhabitants lose confidence in their governor.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has found himself in an increasingly precarious political position: a Republican-led recall movement garners support from far-right groups as well as mainstream Republicans and some bigwigs in the Silicon Valley. And while the effort is unlikely to succeed in toppling him, even longtime allies are publicly questioning his leadership through this latest, most deadly, phase of the crisis.
He was hailed as a national hero in the early months of the pandemic, but Newsom’s job ratings have plummeted in recent weeks. Just under a third of voters polled by UC Berkeley’s Institute for Government Studies rated the governor’s overall handling of the pandemic well, while 44% said he was doing badly. That’s a complete reversal from September, when 49% of those polled by the institute said Newsom was doing a great or good job – and 28% rated it poorly.
Criticism has come from all sides. Lawmakers have been divided over its decision to lift regional stay-at-home orders a week after the state surpassed 3 million coronavirus cases. Health workers were dismayed to find that some of its recent health guidelines diverged from established and emerging scientific research. He has bickered with teachers’ unions and parents over when and how to reopen public schools in the state. Activists say it is failing Latino and black residents, disabled Californians and essential workers who are dying at disproportionate rates. And jobless Californians, struggling to access unemployment benefits, have cursed the bureaucratic inertia of the administration.
For many residents of the state, Newsom’s announcements about the economy, distributing vaccines or reopening schools have felt increasingly dissonant with their dire realities as the pandemic has progressed.
Amy Arlund, an emergency room nurse in the Central Valley, said she was furious hospitals continue to face staff and equipment shortages. “Trust has been broken especially with our government officials, our leaders and the organizations and agencies that are supposed to protect us,” said Arlund. “We have the impression that we are consumable.”
Four of her colleagues at Kaiser Fresno Hospital have died from Covid-19, Arlund said, including a fellow nurse who contracted the virus last summer after the hospital ran out of PPE and the staff used homemade plastic sheet face shields. and electrical tape.
For Héctor Manuel Ramírez, a disability rights advocate in Los Angeles who had worked on a behavioral health task force that the governor launched last year, a breaking point was Newsom’s announcement that in In an effort to speed up vaccine distribution, the state would begin to prioritize people by age. , rather than an occupation or medical history.
The news came as Ramírez was preparing the funeral arrangements for their brother, Eduardo.
Eduardo was 35 and severely immunocompromised from AIDS, so Ramírez, their family and friends watched with anxiety as the state’s chaotic vaccine rollout, hoping his turn would come in time.
That was not the case. Eduardo is dead – the fourth in Ramírez’s family to succumb to Covid-19.
Ramírez said Newsom, unlike many of his counterparts in other states, is firmly committed to addressing health disparities. “I listened to the Governor’s coronavirus updates quite regularly, and his words had always given me hope. Now I feel cheated, I feel used. I feel like I am without leadership, ”they said.
“There has been so much fear and desperation in my community,” they added. “Whether it’s intentional or not, it feels like our leaders have forgotten about us.”
Criticism has also increased over the state’s management of the reopening of schools and unemployment assistance. As many state-owned businesses reopen, Newsom has found itself caught in crossfire between the parents of 6 million public school students anxious to get their children back to class and the teachers’ unions who fear that he is not sure enough to return.
Newsom late last year proposed a $ 2 billion plan to help schools reopen in the spring, but principals, unions and lawmakers said it was insufficient. In a lively meeting with the Association of California School Administrators last week, Newsom responded to requests that all teachers receive vaccines before returning to school in person: “If we are to find reasons not to open, we will find many reasons. “
Meanwhile, the state’s unemployment agency has come under fire following a scathing audit last month, which found that as millions of jobless Californias still do not have access to unemployment benefits , the agency paid more than $ 11 billion on fraudulent claims.
In a hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers on both sides were furious that voters were lining up in queues at food banks and sleeping in their cars while the state suspended aid. “Californians are frustrated, they are furious, they have had enough,” said Rudy Salas, a Democratic MP representing parts of rural Central Valley.
Make life and death decisions about who should get the vaccine first, balance the need to deal with the state’s economic crisis alongside its health crisis, discern what is and what is not safe at In the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic, it’s going to be incredibly difficult, said Dr Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco.
For much of the past year, as Donald Trump has denied the severity of the pandemic and guided false miracles, Newsom and other governors have become “beacons of leadership for the whole country,” Chin continued. Hong. Another poll, from Morning Consult, found that although Newsom’s job ratings have fallen in recent weeks, it is more popular now than it was before the pandemic hit.
“But as the pandemic progresses, people have higher expectations,” Chin-Hong said – they expect leaders to explain the reasoning behind public health decisions.
Newsom didn’t do that two weeks ago, when he suddenly announced he was going to lift the state’s most restrictive stay orders, Chin-Hong said. Even state lawmakers have said they have been caught off guard.
“If you think state lawmakers have been blinded by the changing and confusing public health guidelines, you would be right,” Assembly Member Laura Friedman said after Newsom’s announcement. “If you think we’ve been silent on this in Sacramento, you’d be wrong.”
Health workers said that it was not helping that Newsom initially kept the data and reasoning behind the changing rules and guidelines. “The announcement of the reopening was so sudden. People were so confused because outside of hospitals there were mobile morgues filled with body bags of people who died from Covid-19, ”Chin-Hong said. “It really put people at risk.”
“There is definitely a communication problem,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Institute for Government Studies at UC Berkeley. “We find that about half of the public say they don’t trust the governor.”
Newsom’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on such criticism.
Many groups questioning the governor’s recent policies said he could easily regain their trust – if he was willing to work with them.
Christian Ramirez, policy director of SEIU-USWW, a union that represents more than 45,000 service workers in California, said he was thrilled to hear Newsom announce a plan last month to send low-income Californians $ 600 , including undocumented immigrants. “There has been a willingness from Governor Newsom to ensure that essential workers, regardless of their immigration status, are not left to fend for themselves,” Ramirez said. But the proposal has not yet been enacted.
Ramirez has 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 mobilized a record number of people to go to the polls and vote in the recent elections,” he said. The union could easily leverage its network to help hundreds of thousands of workers quickly fill out unemployment benefit paperwork or register for immunization appointments. “We don’t expect the governor to do it alone – and we are ready to support him,” Ramirez said.
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