Los Angeles Times - 13.03.2020

B4 FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2020 LATIMES.COM

SACRAMENTO — Gov.

Gavin Newsom released a

sweeping executive order on

Thursday that allows the

state to commandeer hotels

and medical facilities to

treat coronavirus patients

and permits government of-

ficials to hold teleconfer-

ences in private without vio-

lating open meeting laws.

Newsom issued the order

hours after he called for the

cancellation of gatherings of

250 or more people through

the end of March, the first

time he has applied so-

called social distancing

practices to the entire state.

“This is where we need to

go next, and to make sure we

fully implement those pro-

cedures and protocols to

slow down the spread to get

through a peak and to get

through the next few

months, so we don’t over-

whelm our healthcare deliv-

ery system,” Newsom told

reporters.

But as he used his execu-

tive powers to expand the

state’s response to the out-

break and made unprece-

dented requests of its 50 mil-

lion inhabitants, the first-

term governor also faced

questions about whether he

was going far enough.

Newsom described the

directive to cancel large-

scale events across the state,

which he also included in his

executive order, as “guid-

ance” and said its legal au-

thority is limited. He said he

has the power to enforce clo-

sures, but did not think that

would be necessary.

“I see people doing the

right thing,” Newsom said.

“Why take a step that’s un-

necessary when people are

naturally going to do the

right thing? Many times, you

don’t to penalize people or

even threaten to penalize

them when they say, ‘Well,

we’re happy to comply.’ ”

Theme parks, casinos

and theaters — all places

where people congregate in

close proximity — were ex-

empted from Newsom’s di-

rective.

“The reason we didn’t do

it was because the complex-

ity of their unique circum-

stances, but I assure you we

are moving quickly and ef-

fectively towards a resolu-

tion in those spaces,” the

governor said.

Shortly after his news

conference, Disney said its

Disneyland and California

Adventure parks would

close to the public beginning

Saturday until the end of

March.

The governor said thea-

ters were looking at ways to

stagger seating to create dis-

tance between moviegoers,

adjust show times and

change line formations. He

offered little explanation for

preventive measures at ca-

sinos, which are on tribal

land.

While the state of New

York sent the National

Guard into the city of New

Rochelle, a hot spot for the

virus, Newsom has declined

to call in military support.

With 48 confirmed cases as

of Thursday afternoon, the

virus is not as advanced in

the county as it is in New

Rochelle, which counted

more than 100 cases when

New York Gov. Andrew Cuo-

mo requested military inter-

vention.

“This is a dynamic proc-

ess, but I can assure you

we’re not there yet,” New-

som said this week.

The governor said 198

people have tested positive

for COVID-19 in California of

Thursday, marking a 10% in-

crease from just a day earli-

er. The executive order will

enhance the state’s ability to

fight the pandemic going

forward, Newsom said.

The order established a

60-day extension for people

or businesses to file state

taxes if they may be unable

to do so because of the out-

break and requests from

health officials. It also allows

the Employment Devel-

opment Department to

waive a one-week waiting pe-

riod for people to apply for

unemployment or disability

insurance in relation to the

virus.

Newsom’s action waives

work hour limitations for Of-

fice of Emergency Services

staff and makes it easier to

hire back retired employees

who may be able to offer

their expertise in a crisis.

Under the order, the Califor-

nia Health and Human

Services Agency and the Of-

fice of Emergency Services

will be able to execute agree-

ments to commandeer ho-

tels, or medical facilities that

are not in use, to quarantine,

isolate and treat COVID-

patients or those with a high

risk of exposure, the order

states.

The order also allows

trained laboratory person-

nel to perform COVID-

tests, which are ordinarily

completed only by microbi-

ologists.

When asked what resi-

dents should expect next,

Newsom said it depends on

how people respond to

health guidelines and re-

quests.

“I continue to posit that

it’s decisions, not condi-

tions, that will determine

our fate and future as it re-

lates to COVID-19,” he said.

“We have agency. We can

change the future. So, it is in

the sum total of our individ-

ual decisions that we will de-

termine the fate of this virus.

We will meet or not meet the

moment. I am confident we

will meet the moment.”

State could use

hotels to treat

virus patients

Gov. Newsom signs an

executive order that

lets California take

over various facilities.

By Taryn Luna

considerations, though seri-
ous, have to take a back seat
to public health priorities,
UTLA leaders said.
The union also called for
an expansion of the social
safety net through such
measures as stipends so par-
ents could stay at home with
their children, extended sick
leave to cover the incubation
period of the coronavirus ill-
ness, and funding to cover
the cost of testing and treat-
ment. More broadly, the
union is calling for “debt
forgiveness” to protect fam-
ilies from financial hardship
caused by the loss of jobs or
work hours related to the cri-
sis.
“We are only as protected
collectively as the most vul-
nerable person is pro-
tected,” Caputo-Pearl said.
Many parents agreed on
the call to close schools.
More than 19,000 people had
signed a Change.org peti-
tion to close all campuses in
the district because of the
coronavirus. “Let us not wait
for an individual to test pos-
itive but make sure we close
schools before that hap-
pens,” the petition urged
Thursday.
Also on Thursday, Wash-
ington Gov. Jay Inslee an-
nounced that 43 school dis-
tricts across three counties
in that state would be closed
for the next six weeks. This
followed similar announce-
ments from Ohio and Mary-
land.
In the Los Angeles area,
some private schools have
announced campus closures
and a transition to online
learning, including Camp-
bell Hall in Studio City,
Harvard-Westlake’s two
L.A. campuses and Mayfield
Senior School in Pasadena.
Also, the school district that
serves Santa Monica and
Malibu announced that it
would close Friday and Mon-
day for a deep cleaning and
staff meetings after “a com-
munity member with chil-

dren in our schools” was ex-

posed to coronavirus, ac-

cording to a release from

Supt. Ben Drati.

The Los Angeles Unified

school board is scheduled to

meet in closed session Fri-

day for a status report from

Supt. Austin Beutner.

Board President Richard

Vladovic said Thursday that

it was important to rely on

health officials in making

the call on whether to close

schools.

“The prudent decision is

to take direction from the

doctors and the healthcare

providers that happen to

know,” he said. “I can’t

second-guess a pandemic

and how it’s spread. If there’s

ever a doubt, the safety of

children will come first.”

Officials from the gover-

nor on down have avoided

calling for closing schools,

citing the hardships for fam-

ilies, and the difficulty in pro-

viding academic services

and the school meals that

many children depend on.

But Vladovic acknowledged

there was widespread de-

bate among parents and em-

ployees about what was

best.

“I’m very sensitive to

that, and I’m in that group

that is very susceptible, and

I know that many of our em-

ployees are as well,” said

Vladovic, who is 75 and has

battled health issues in re-

cent years.

So far, L.A. County has

been taking cues from Sing-

apore, which did not close

schools en masse but

screened people for illness

and had strict protocols for

who could enter schools, Dr.

Barbara Ferrer, director of

the Los Angeles County De-

partment of Public Health,

said at a news conference

Thursday.

The district, she said,

serves many parents with

“very limited income, who

don’t get sick leaves,” who

often are working multiple

jobs and can’t necessarily

put kids in day care. Schools

should be kept open if they

can function safely, Ferrer

said, but sick people need to

stay away.

As the nation’s second-

largest school district, L.A.

Unified serves about half a

million students, 8 in 10 of

whom rely on free or re-

duced-price lunches and

18,000 of whom are home-

less. School board member

Nick Melvoin said the deci-

sion on whether to close was

therefore a hard one. Plus,

he said, the district’s actions

can create a domino effect,

putting pressure on other

large urban school districts

to shut down too.

The federal government

has given California a waiver

to allow meal distribution to

students even if school is

canceled, but that could

still present logistical chal-

lenges.

“They’re relying on us for

meals, for child care, and I

also think from a public

health concern,” Melvoin

said. If schools close, par-

ents who have to go to work

may be forced to take their

children with them. Also,

children in middle school

and high school would prob-

ably congregate in public

areas anyway, as teenagers

tend to do.

“The school environment

is one we can control right

now,” Melvoin said Thurs-

day afternoon.

School nurse Stephanie

Yellin-Mednick said she’s

been inundated with ques-

tions and dealt with many

sick children at the Sherman

Oaks Center for Enriched

Studies. But it’s the seasonal

flu, not the coronavirus, and

so far, absences have not ris-

en beyond typical levels.

Ferrer said a clear tipping

point for closing a school

would be if an infected per-

son was identified at that

campus.

A complication, said

Vladovic, is the interconnec-

tion among schools. Siblings

attend different campuses;

children are bused from one

neighborhood to another;

employees come from all

parts of the city.

“There are so many con-

nections in the district. I’m

trying to figure out how you

isolate something to one,

two, three, four or five

schools. You don’t,” Vladovic

said. “I think at some point,

the closing of schools is in-

evitable.”

Some parents have al-

ready started keeping their

kids at home. On a Facebook

group started during last

year’s strike, Parents Sup-

porting Teachers, families

are sharing resources for at-

home learning.

“For those parents who

have said to me, ‘I don’t feel

comfortable sending my

kids to school,’ I have said

I’m ... going to do everything

I can to make sure absences

during this period are ex-

cused,” Melvoin said.

L.A. Unified isn’t the only

district to close large events;

Long Beach Unified an-

nounced a similar policy

Thursday.

Elsewhere in L.A. County,

schools are closing tempo-

rarily so they can prepare for

online instruction. Las Vir-

genes Unified will close for

two days next week for “staff

in-service time to prepare

for the likelihood of a dis-

trict-wide closure,” district

Supt. Dan Stepenosky said

in a letter to families Thurs-

day.

State funding, which ac-

counts for most of the money

that goes to California pub-

lic schools, is allocated

based on how many stu-

dents attend school each

day. In the case of a pan-

demic like this, schools can

seek to recover funding if

they close, as long as they do

so under the direction of

public health agencies.

Times staff writer Paloma

Esquivel contributed to this

report.

STUDENTSarrive at Dodson Middle School in Rancho Palos Verdes to start the school year in August. On
Thursday, the head of the teachers union called for L.A. Unified to shut campuses as a coronavirus precaution.

Irfan KhanLos Angeles Times

Will schools be closed?

[LAUSD,from B1]

reservation just about
anywhere, and it’s tempting
to get lost in the idea of a
livable Los Angeles, where
you can breeze from here to
there in a fraction of the
time and avoid crowds at
even the most popular
eateries.
Traffic was indeed light-
er than normal as I tooled
around Thursday morning,
both before and after the
rains arrived, as long as I
didn’t try to get anywhere
near a supermarket. The
Harbor, Golden State and
Santa Monica freeways
didn’t offer clear sailing, but
the misery quotient was
lower than usual.
Lance Hill of Torrance
e-mailed me to say that his
daughter’s 30-minute com-
mute to his house, where
she drops off his grandchild
before continuing to work, is
now a 20-minute commute.
Hill, a retired civil engi-
neer, knows this because he
uses an app to monitor
traffic as he follows his
daughter’s progress toward
his home.
“I noticed that her
freeway was lighter, and I
checked to see if traffic was
lighter all over L.A., and it
was,” Hill said when I gave
him a call.
He knows more than he’d

like to about the near-daily

backup at the intersection

of the 91 and 710 freeways,

Hill said, and there’s been

much less congestion in

recent days.

This is no surprise, as

schools are closed, events

canceled, and employees

encouraged to work from

home if possible. And then

there are the repeated re-

minders to stay away from

each other, with warnings

every two minutes to prac-

tice “social distancing.”

But Hill is wondering

whether some of this

doesn’t give us hope for the

long run. Might companies

now realize that tele-

commuting can work? And

might that lower the volume

of cars on the road even

after the crisis passes?

“We spend billions of

dollars” on transportation

projects that take years to

complete, Hill said. “Why

can’t we take that money

and use it to incentivize

companies and people” to

allow more telecommuting?

“Give an employee a com-

puter and a tax break.”

Hill is onto something,

said local transportation

guru Martin Wachs, distin-

guished professor emeritus

of urban planning at UCLA.

“Small changes in traffic

volumes can make large

changes in travel times,”

said Wachs. “So, at peak

hour, when people are mov-

ing at 10 miles an hour, if you

remove 7% of the traffic, you

could be moving at 35 miles

an hour.”

Wachs noted that he

stayed home Thursday but

was able to monitor a traffic

safety conference online.

One problem, he said, is

that many workers, such as

restaurant employees, can’t

telecommute. And then

there are the employers who

don’t allow telecommuting,

Wachs said, because they

don’t trust their employees

to be as efficient when work-

ing from home.

But he noted that L.A.

officials are studying con-

gestion pricing as a traffic

deterrent, and if there is a

stiff fee for traveling in high-

volume corridors at peak

hours, it could lead to more

telecommuting.

Don’t get too excited,

because in a region with

millions of people and vehi-

cles, lighter traffic wouldn’t

mean no traffic. But at

mid-morning Thursday, I

arrived at the Original

Farmers Market at Third

and Fairfax far faster than

usual, and when I got there,

two-thirds of the parking lot

was empty.

The only person at E.B.’s

Beer & Wine was the bar-

tender, Ryan Morrison. It

was mid-morning, but I’ve

seen butts in seats there at

that hour many a time.

Morrison was watching the

Players Championship golf

tournament and noted that

fans would not be allowed to

attend the match this week-

end thanks to the virus.

The thought of a barkeep

with no customers, watch-

ing a golf tournament with

no fans, might just get me to

the beer garden this week-

end. Come on, can’t we be

careful and safe without

having to wave a white flag?

Cathy and Bob Pringle

aren’t staying home. They

were enjoying a cup of joe

while sharing sections of the

L.A. Times at a table near

Coffee Corner. They told me

they weren’t panicking but

would have liked more

information from President

Trump’s Wednesday-night

address regarding what’s

being done to make more

virus testing available to

people with symptoms.

Driving back downtown,

I heard on the radio that

Anthony Fauci, one of the

nation’s top health officials,

acknowledged in a congres-

sional hearing that our

testing efforts to date

haven’t been up to snuff.

“That is a failing. It is a

failing. Let’s admit it,” he

said.

I tuned in to Rush Lim-

baugh for a different per-

spective. The radio host, a

recent recipient of the Presi-

dential Medal of Freedom,

was defending Trump to the

hilt, saying the president

was on top of things and

that his critics were hyping

hysteria as a way to bash

him.

“We’re talking about a

virus that comes from the

family of the common cold,”

Limbaugh said.

This is true. But it’s like

saying that Trump and

Bernie Sanders both come

from the East Coast.

Limbaugh then made

fun of the calls from public

health experts to refrain

from handshaking and

hugging. Don’t hug anyone,

he said mockingly. “That’s

how Harvey Weinstein got in

trouble.”

One good thing about

lighter traffic is that you get

to your destination faster,

and off goes the radio.

My last stop was China-

town, because I was think-

ing the combination of rain

and the virus pandemic

might mean I could finally

get some chicken at Howlin’

Ray’s without having to

stand in line for three hours.

I parked, walked over in

steady rain, and the dream

died. About 70 people were

in line, with none of the

prescribed social distanc-

ing.

We have entered a new

frontier in Los Angeles, but

some things never change.

[email protected]

Now for the good news: the perks of the pandemic

IF COMPANIES realize that telecommuting works,

could the pandemic point the way to lighter traffic?

Genaro MolinaLos Angeles Times

[Perks, from B1]