So when the state says Southern California and San Joaquin Valley regions have 0% ICU capacity, it means the bulk of patients in the ICUs are COVID-19 patients, not that there are no ICU beds, Rutherford said.ĭr. COVID-19 patients tend to need longer care, penalizing regions like Southern California that have a higher proportion. “If they do exist, the county would find them helpful,” he said.Īdding to the complexity, the state uses a weighted percentage to determine ICU capacity. San Bernardino County spokesman David Wert said officials there aren’t aware of the secret models. “It’s a public agency, so it’s just curious why they wouldn’t share the data, especially with the local health officers. “They’re making projections and decisions that have great consequence to people’s lives,” Condie said of state health officials. No data existed, the county acknowledged. “These fluid, on-the-ground conditions cannot be boiled down to a single data point - and to do so would mislead and create greater uncertainty for Californians,” she said in a statement.Ĭondie’s association won in court last month after a judge ordered Los Angeles County to provide data supporting its restaurant dining closure order. But she said projected ICU capacity is based on multiple variables including available beds and staffing that change regularly. builds backlog of 940,000+ unemployment claimsĬalifornia Health and Human Services Agency spokeswoman Kate Folmar said officials are committed to transparency, providing twice-weekly updates on whether certain regions can relax restrictions.stops publicly providing data determining stay at home order.continues to struggle with the vaccine roll out.Newsom’s office says he’s not doing a briefing today, we haven’t heard from him at all this week as CA: “At the moment the projections are not being shared publicly,” Department of Public Health spokeswoman Ali Bay said in an email. State officials projected four weeks of ICU capacity using a combination of models to estimate infections. I assume they know something I don’t know.” George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious-diseases control expert at University of California, San Francisco. “What happened to the 15%? What was that all about?” asked Dr. On Thursday, it was at 8%, roughly the same as when the order was lifted. ![]() ![]() Public health officials relied on a complex formula to project that while the region’s intensive care capacity was below 10%, it would climb above 15% within four weeks. It’s created logistical difficulties for the industry,” which scrambled to rehire staff and order food. “We just don’t know what happens behind the curtain. ![]() “It was a good surprise, but we just didn’t see it coming,” said California Restaurant Association president and CEO Jot Condie. It’s a mystery how the state made the decision or how and when it will lift the most serious restrictions on the bulk of the population because the data is not being shared. Local officials and businesses were caught off guard. Suddenly, outdoor dining andzc worship services were OK again, hair and nail salons and other businesses could reopen, and retailers could allow more shoppers inside. But within a day, the state announced it was lifting the order for the 13-county Greater Sacramento region. A map updated daily tracks each region’s capacity.Īt the start of last week, the four regions appeared unlikely to have the stay-at-home order lifted soon because capacity was well below 15%. In short order, four regions - about 98% of the state’s population - were under the restrictions after their capacity fell below the 15% threshold. Rather than a county-by-county approach, he created five regions and established a single measurement - ICU capacity - as the determination for whether a region was placed under a stay-at-home order. It released data models state officials used to project whether infections, hospitalizations and deaths are likely to rise or fall.Īs cases surged after Thanksgiving, Newsom tore up his playbook. ![]() State officials said they rely on a very complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if they were made public.Īfter Newsom, a Democrat, imposed the nation’s first statewide shutdown in March, his administration developed reopening plans that included benchmarks for virus data such as per capita infection rates that counties needed to meet to relax restrictions. Gavin Newsom has from the start said his coronavirus policy decisions would be driven by data shared with the public to provide maximum transparency.īut with the state starting to emerge from its worst surge, his administration won’t disclose key information that will help determine when his latest stay-at-home order is lifted.
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