The number of coronavirus deaths in California continues to rise. Their vaccination rates remain low. And some of its residents are losing faith in their governor.
California Governor Gavin Newsom found himself in an increasingly precarious political position: a recall movement led by Republicans is gaining the support of far-right groups, as well as Republicans and some Silicon Valley bigwigs. And while the effort is unlikely to defeat him, even longtime allies are publicly questioning his leadership in this most recent and deadly phase of the crisis.
He was hailed as a national hero in the early months of the pandemic, but Newsom’s job rankings have plummeted in recent weeks. Just under a third of voters polled by the UC Berkeley Institute for Government Studies assessed well how the governor handled the pandemic, while 44% said he was doing poorly. It is a complete reversal of September, when 49% of respondents at the institute said Newsom was doing an excellent or good job – and 28% rated it poorly.
Criticism came from all sides. Lawmakers are divided over their decision to suspend regional home stay orders a week after the state has exceeded 3 million coronavirus cases. Health professionals were dismayed that some of their recent health guidelines differ from established and emerging scientific research. He discussed with teachers ‘and parents’ unions about when and how to reopen state public schools. Activists say he is failing Latino and black residents, disabled Californians and essential workers who are dying at disproportionate rates. And unemployed Californians, struggling to access unemployment insurance, cursed the government’s bureaucratic inertia.
For many across the state, Newsom’s announcements about economics, vaccine distribution or reopening schools seemed increasingly dissonant from their dire realities as the pandemic progressed.
Amy Arlund, an emergency room nurse in the central valley, said she was furious because hospitals continued to face shortages of staff and equipment. “Trust has been broken especially with our government officials, our leaders and the organizations and agencies that are supposed to protect us,” said Arlund. “It looks like we’re expendable.”
Four of his co-workers at Kaiser Fresno hospital died from Covid-19, said Arlund, including a fellow nurse who contracted the virus last summer after the hospital had so many PPE and the team started using face shields made from plastic and electrical tape.
For Héctor Manuel Ramírez, an advocate for disability rights in Los Angeles who had worked on a behavioral health task force launched by the governor last year, a turning point was Newsom’s announcement that in an effort to accelerate distribution vaccines, the state would start prioritizing people by age, rather than a profession or medical history.
The news came while Ramírez was preparing for his brother Eduardo’s funeral.
Eduardo was 35 years old and was severely immunocompromised due to AIDS, so Ramírez, his family and friends had been anxiously watching the chaotic launch of the vaccine in the state, hoping his turn would arrive in time.
It was not. Eduardo died – the fourth of Ramírez’s family to have succumbed to Covid-19.
Ramírez said Newsom, unlike many of his colleagues in other states, has made a strong commitment to addressing health disparities. “I listened to the governor’s updates on the coronavirus quite regularly and his words always gave me hope. Now I feel cheated, I feel used. I feel like I have no leadership, ”they said.
“There has been a lot of fear and despair in my community,” they added. “Whether intentional or not, our leaders seem to have forgotten about us.”
Criticism has also escalated about the state’s handling of school reopening and unemployment benefits. As many of the state companies reopen, Newsom found itself caught in the crossfire between parents of 6 million public school students who are eager to bring their children back to school and teachers unions who are concerned about not being safe enough to come back.
Newsom late last year proposed a $ 2 billion plan to help schools reopen in the spring, but school leaders, unions and lawmakers said it was inappropriate. In a heated meeting with the California School Administrators Association last week, Newsom responded to demands that all teachers receive vaccinations before returning to school in person: “If we want to find reasons not to open, we will find many reasons. “
Meanwhile, the state unemployment agency is being criticized because of a hard-hitting audit last month, which found that, as millions of unemployed californias still need access to unemployment benefits, the agency paid more than $ 11 billion in severance pay fraudulent.
At a hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers from both parties were furious at the fact that constituents lined up at food banks and slept in their cars while the state delayed aid. “Californians are frustrated, enraged and fed up,” said Rudy Salas, a Democratic deputy who represents parts of the rural Central Valley.
Make life and death decisions about who should get the vaccine first, balancing the need to face the state’s economic crisis with its health crisis, discerning what is and what is not safe in the midst of a pandemic that occurs once every century, it’s clear, impossibly difficult, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF’s medical center in San Francisco.
For much of last year, while Donald Trump denied the seriousness of the pandemic and proclaimed false miraculous cures, Newsom and other governors became “leadership beacons for the entire country,” Chin-Hong continued. Another survey by Morning Consult revealed that while Newsom’s job rankings have dropped in recent weeks, he is more popular now than before the pandemic.
“But as the pandemic progresses, people have higher expectations,” said Chin-Hong – they expect leaders to explain the rationale behind public health decisions.
Newsom failed to do this two weeks ago, when he suddenly announced that he would suspend the state’s most restrictive home orders, Chin-Hong said. Even state lawmakers said they were taken by surprise.
“If you think state lawmakers were surprised and confused about the changes and confused public health policy, you are correct,” said Rep. Laura Friedman after Newsom’s announcement. “If you don’t think we talked about it in Sacramento, you’re wrong.”
Health professionals said it did not help that Newsom initially kept the data and reasoning behind changes to rules and guidelines opaque. “The reopening announcement was so sudden. People were very confused because outside the hospitals there were mobile morgues filled with bags of corpses of people who died from Covid-19, ”said Chin-Hong. “It really made people feel insecure.”
“There is definitely a communication problem,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the UC Berkeley Institute for Government Studies. “We are finding that about half of the public is saying that they do not trust the governor.”
Newsom’s office did not respond to several requests for comment on these criticisms.
Many of the groups questioning the governor’s recent policies said he could easily regain their trust – if he is willing to work with them.
Christian Ramirez, director of policies for SEIU-USWW, a union representing more than 45,000 service workers in California, said he was excited to hear Newsom announce last month a plan to send $ 600 to low-income Californians, including immigrants without documents. “There has been a willingness by Governor Newsom to ensure that essential workers, regardless of their immigration status, are not left to their own devices,” said Ramirez. But the proposal has not yet been sanctioned.
Ramirez said he would like the governor to collaborate with unions and advocacy groups to keep his promises. “We know how to reach our community – we mobilize a record number of people to go to the polls and vote in the last elections,” he said. The union could easily leverage its network to help hundreds of thousands of workers quickly fill out unemployment insurance paperwork or sign up for vaccination appointments. “We do not expect the governor to do everything himself – and we are willing to support him,” said Ramirez.