A 'store closed' sign is posted behind a locked gate at the California Surplus Mart, a store selling camping equipment and survival gear on July 16, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. COVID-19 cases have been surging in California, prompting a renewed lockdown.FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images
Laure Chicoine welcomed the first clients back to her California hair salon this week in nearly four months.
She had worked to meet the detailed COVID-19 safety protocols the local government published when it finally gave the green light for salons to reopen on Monday: full-sleeved gowns for staff, face masks and hand sanitizer for customers, temperature checks at the door and UV disinfectants for tools. “We were completely ready to go,” she said.
But just hours into being back in business, Ms. Chicoine learned she would have to close down again as California announced new statewide restrictions on many indoor businesses in hopes of slowing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases across the state.
“It’s horrible. It’s heartbreaking,” Ms. Chicoine said as she prepared to close her doors once more. She was left wondering whether her salon in Los Gatos, an upscale Silicon Valley suburb, could continue to survive on small business loans and unemployment benefits. “I’ve had this business for 30 years. I started when I was 26 years old. I’m not ready to be done yet.”
California became the largest U.S. state to return to a stricter lockdown this week, as Governor Gavin Newsom announced a statewide ban on indoor restaurants and bars, along with requirements for local governments across much of the state to shutter hair salons, fitness centres, malls, movie theatres and places of worship. On Friday, he ordered most of the state’s schools to remain closed until cases were under control, casting doubt over the prospect of in-person classes when many schools restart in August.
Mr. Newsom cited an alarming rise in cases, which have more than doubled in the past month to 366,000. Hospital admissions have risen nearly 30 per cent over the past two weeks, after a 50-per-cent spike earlier this month. Hospitals in several rural communities have been so overrun that they have scrambled to send patients to other parts of the state.
In Los Angeles, which has been particularly hard hit by the virus, officials warned that the region could return to the full stay-at-home order unless it can slow the spread.
”We are in an alarming and dangerous phase in this pandemic here,” said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County’s Public Health Officer.
The renewed lockdown is a blow to California, which had succeeded in flattening the curve after enacting the country’s first stay-at-home order in March, only to erase those earlier gains as the state began reopening in May.
“It’s had an inevitable feel to it since Memorial Day [May 31], when cases started to rise again,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist with the University of California, San Francisco.
positive cases
COVID-19 hospitalizations
By race/ethnicity
By county
Asian
6%
Black
4%
CALIFORNIA
Latino
55%
San
Francisco
White
18%
Other
18%
Los
Angeles
Does not total to 100 due to rounding
Day-over-day new cases
March 19
California
issues
statewide
stay-at-
home
order
May 8
The state
begins
loosen-
ing
restric-
tions
July 13
Governor Gavin
Newsom orders
indoor bars, restau-
rants and other
businesses to close
down again
July 16:
9,986
Total: 366,164
(July 17, 4 p.m. Eastern)
March 19:
331
3/22
4/7
4/23
5/9
5/25
6/10
6/26
7/12
JOHN SOPINSKI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
SOURCE: california.gov
positive cases
COVID-19 hospitalizations
By race/ethnicity
By county
Asian
6%
Black
4%
CALIFORNIA
Latino
55%
San
Francisco
White
18%
Other
18%
Los
Angeles
Does not total to 100 due to rounding
Day-over-day new cases
March 19
California
issues
statewide
stay-at-
home order
May 8
The state
begins
loosening
restric-
tions
July 13
Governor Gavin Newsom
orders indoor bars,
restaurants and other
businesses to close
down again
July 16:
9,986
March 19:
331
Total: 366,164
(July 17, 4 p.m. Eastern)
3/22
4/7
4/23
5/9
5/25
6/10
6/26
7/12
JOHN SOPINSKI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
SOURCE: california.gov
positive cases
COVID-19 hospitalizations
By race/ethnicity
By county
Asian
6%
Black
4%
CALIFORNIA
Latino
55%
San
Francisco
White
18%
Other
18%
Los
Angeles
Does not total to 100 due to rounding
Day-over-day new cases
March 19
California issues
statewide stay-at-
home order
May 8
The state
begins loos-
ening restric-
tions
July 13
Governor Gavin Newsom orders
indoor bars, restaurants and other
businesses to close down again
July 16:
9,986
Total: 366,164
(July 17, 4 p.m. Eastern)
March 19:
331
3/22
4/7
4/23
5/9
5/25
6/10
6/26
7/12
JOHN SOPINSKI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: california.gov
California’s experience has become a cautionary tale for other U.S. states that are working to restart their economies and reopen schools even as the pandemic continues to rage out of control within their borders.
The summer surge in California and other Western states has largely been fuelled by outbreaks among essential workers – particularly within the Latino population – who don’t have the option of working from home, Dr. Rutherford said. Shutting down the riskiest in-person businesses became necessary to protect the most vulnerable workers.
“When we talk about going back to work and reopening the economy, we always knew there would be a trade-off with more cases, but we were hoping it wouldn’t be on the backs of brown and Black people,” he said. “But that seems to be what’s happening, and I think we need to be conscious of that.”
Across the U.S., more than a dozen states have delayed plans to reopen or announced new restrictions as the country hit a record for the number of new cases – 77,000 – in a single day on Thursday. More than 3.5 million Americans have tested positive for the virus and nearly 140,000 have died.
This week California drastically rolled back its reopening plans and ordered all indoor restaurants, bars and cinemas to close again at the COVID-19 infection rate continues to spike.ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
The soaring number of cases across the U.S. threatens to derail what had been signs of a fragile economic recovery. Employment and consumer spending rebounded in June, fuelled by relaxed restrictions on business activity and a $600-a-week federal unemployment insurance supplement that is set to expire at the end of July. Seeking to avert a deep recession, Congress is widely expected to try to pass a fifth stimulus package – likely the last before the November election – ahead of a summer recess in August.
In California, the combination of new lockdown measures and the end to the supplemental unemployment insurance is likely to be a double whammy for consumer confidence, said economist Mark Schniepp of the California Economic Forecast.
“Closing down the economy again, warranted or not, broadcasts the notion that the pandemic is out of control and dangerous,” he wrote in a research note. “This causes consumers to retreat further from their spending patterns, sentencing the economy to an extended period of recession.”
Mr. Newsom has likened the new restrictions to a “dimmer switch” that can be dialled up or down as conditions change, rather than a full-scale lockdown. But for the small businesses that have been buffeted by the ever-changing rules, it has felt like a punch to the gut.
“We didn’t contribute to this issue because we were shut,” said Mary Hill, whose small hair salon in a suburb of San Jose was open for just one day this week before it was forced to close again. “We just feel like we’re being singled out and punished.”
Rules forcing salons to close have fuelled a burgeoning black market for hair stylists, Ms. Hill said, who travel to clients’ homes or work out of their garages to stay afloat – often without the strict sanitation measures that licensed salons had put in place. “It’s adding fuel to the issue of people not being able to preserve their businesses,” she said. “Because if those people don’t come back and rent the stations, the person who owns the salon is going to go under.”
In Santa Cruz, which had allowed restaurants to reopen for indoor dining earlier this month, Michael Mounir had started to see a return to the normal bustling activity at his falafel shop in the city’s downtown. But by late last week, his empty restaurant was back to offering takeout to a handful of walk-in customers and delivery orders.
“If [the virus] is going to be a problem, then it’s worth it to close, because we’re talking about lives,” he said. “Of course a lot of people are going to be getting hurt business-wise, but what can you do?”
Dr. Rutherford estimated it would take the state two or three weeks under the renewed lockdown measures to reduce cases to a level where contact tracing can start to be effective. While the state has hired 10,000 contact tracers, cases have so far outstripped that capacity.
But some small-business owners say they may not be able to wait several more weeks.
“I’m going to hang on as long as possible,” said Ms. Chicoine, who is petitioning the state licensing board to let her to move her salon operations outdoors into her parking lot. “This is my moneymaker. It’s my passion in life. If I can’t do this, I don’t know what I would do.”
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Tamsin McMahon