In a move that really isn’t that surprising, far-left California Governor Gavin Newsom has refused to disclose important data to the public. The Democrat originally promised that his policy decisions surrounding the coronavirus would be supported by data shared with the public, but is now apparently walking that back.
After promising transparency, Newsom has chosen not to disclose information to the public that would help determine when his state’s stay-at-home order will be lifted, just as the state has begun to emerge from its worst COVID surge.
Trying to cover for him, state health officials have claimed that the complex set of measurements that they use would only confuse and mislead Californians if they were made public.
Dr. Lee Riley, chairman of the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health infectious disease division, disagrees with that assessment.
“There is more uncertainty created by NOT releasing the data that only the state has access to,” he said in an email, adding that the release of the information would give outside experts a chance to assess its value for projecting trends and decisions on lifting restrictions.
Confusing Changes
Newsom was the first to impose a statewide shutdown in March of 2020. His administration created reopening plans which included benchmarks for virus data, such as per capita infection rates that counties were required to meet in order to relax the restrictions. At the time, the state released data models that were being used to project whether infections, deaths, and hospitalizations were likely to rise or fall.
Just after Thanksgiving, Newsom decided to completely change his plans, eliminating the county-by-county approach. He then split the state up into five regions, and established ICU capacity as the only measurement for whether a region was placed under a stay-at-home order.
A map, which is updated daily, was created to track each region’s capacity. Four regions, which contained 98% of the state’s population, were then kept under the harsh restrictions after their capacity fell below the 15% threshold.
Despite the fact that no regions showed any chance of having the stay-at-home order lifted due to not meeting that threshold, California announced last week that the order would be lifted for one region, the Greater Sacramento area, which contains 13 counties.
State officials did not explain their reasoning for this announcement, besides saying that it was based on a projection for ICU capacity. Outdoor dining and worship services, among other businesses, were all allowed to reopen.
“What happened to the 15%? What was that all about? I was surprised. I assume they know something I don’t know” said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious-diseases control expert at University of California, San Francisco.
State Officials Refuse to Allow Transparency — While Saying They Are Committed to Transparency
State officials supposedly projected the future ICU capacity of the region using a combination of models. “At the moment the projections are not being shared publicly,” Department of Public Health spokeswoman Ali Bay said.
“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,” California Health and Human Services Agency spokeswoman Kate Folmar said in a statement, adding that officials are committed to transparency.
David Snyder, the Executive Director of the First Amendment Coalition Executive, urged California to change course.
“The state is wielding extraordinary power these days — power to close businesses, to directly impact people’s livelihoods and even lives — and so it owes it to Californians to disclose how and why it makes those decisions,” said Snyder.
“Secrecy is exactly the wrong approach here and will only breed further mistrust, confusion and contempt for the crucial role of government in bringing us out of this crisis,” he added.
