California, with the nation’s most severe lockdowns, now has the most new COVID cases per capita in addition to all the other harms. It’s hard to imagine a more catastrophic failure of political leadership.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco, said “California is unique because this particular lockdown came off as arbitrary and not data driven. Californians have listened to the news. They have seen the data on the virus, they know that being outside is safer, they know the impact the lockdown will have on businesses that could die forever, and they just don’t buy it.”
James Hamilton at UC San Diego adds that “the benefits of lockdowns are hard to demonstrate in the data.” Nate Silver, the high priest of data science, referred to the “irrational and not-very-science-driven regime of COVID policies in California,” adding, as a New Yorker, “Don’t mistake us for California.”
Even with the Governor out of control and our food banks overwhelmed, California’s embarrassing Legislature is delaying its January return by a week. We’ve seen this movie way too many times before.
Meanwhile, signatures for the Recall keep coming in. If the required number were the same as it was for the Gray Davis Recall, it would already be on the verge of qualifying.
Because of a corrupt law our Legislature passed in 2017 to drag out the process, a Recall Election won’t take place until next summer. But there’s a benefit to that timing: the new Governor could immediately call a Special Session of the Legislature to pass fundamental reforms, and any defenders of the corrupt status quo would have to face voters the following year.
The good news is we’re seeing more counties pass our Healthy Communities Resolution to oppose Newsom’s lockdowns, and I’m hopeful the Court of Appeals will soon affirm our victory over Newsom at trial. But I believe it’s going to take an extraordinary act of We the People to give California the fundamental course correction it needs.
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