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Parliamentary Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accused California Governor Gavin Newsom of withholding coronavirus data on Tuesday.
McCarthy, who represents California’s 23rd Congressional District, criticized Newsom for lifting a regional stay-at-home order less than a week after President Biden took office and failing to explain why the state lowered its ICU capacity threshold to determine lockouts.
After state health officials said last week they were keeping all data secret because it’s complicated and could mislead the public, the California Department of Health released projections on Monday. previously covert about the capacity of future hospital intensive care units statewide, the key metric for lifting the stay-at-home order against the coronavirus.
State officials, however, did not explain how regional virus cases per capita and the transmission rates that have also been released could influence the amount of intensive care space available in four weeks.
“One thing that has been clear throughout the pandemic is that Americans have been deprived of the resources to do what’s best for us, families and the community,” McCarthy said in a statement. “The most recent example of this is California Governor Gavin Newsom hiding key data about the virus in his state and refusing to release it because it” would confuse and potentially mislead the public if made public “.”
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“Not only does this make no sense, but it suggests that Newsom doesn’t believe his constituents are capable of doing what’s right for them and their families,” McCarthy continued.
In this Friday, May 22, 2020, file photo, California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville, Calif. (AP Photo / Eric Risberg, Pool, File)
Rather than a county-by-county approach, Newsom created five regions and established a single metric – the capacity of the ICU – to determine whether a region was under a stay-at-home order.
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In no time, four regions – about 98% of the state’s population – were under restrictions after their capacity fell below the 15% threshold.
At the start of last week, no region looked likely to see the stay-at-home order lifted anytime soon as its capacity was well below 15%. But in one day, the state announced it was lifting the order for the Greater Sacramento area to 13 counties.
A giant banner reads “Stay away to stay together” in Spanish in Los Angeles on Monday, January 25, 2021. (AP Photo / Damian Dovarganes)
California Health and Human Services Agency spokeswoman Kate Folmar said last week officials are committed to transparency, providing twice-weekly updates on whether regions can relax restrictions. But she said the ICU’s projected capacity is based on several variables, including available beds and regularly changing staff.
“These fluid conditions on the ground cannot be boiled down to a single data point – and to do so would be misleading and create greater uncertainty for Californians,” she said last week.
Dr Lee Riley, president of the University of California, division of infectious diseases at the Berkeley School of Public Health, disagreed.
“There is more uncertainty created by NOT releasing data to which only the state has access,” he said in an email. Its publication would allow outside experts to assess its value in projecting trends and resulting decisions on lifting restrictions, he wrote.
Newsom, a Democrat, imposed the country’s first state shutdown in March. His administration drew up reopening plans that included benchmarks for viral data such as per capita infection rates that counties had to meet to ease restrictions.
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Fox News’s investigation into Newsom’s office was not immediately referred.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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