San Diego Reports Unprecedented Surge In Coronavirus Cases

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego's Corona virus. Surge continues with 833 new cases reported on Monday. The state as a whole is facing such an unprecedented increase in cases that governor Newsome has put a halt on reopenings and tightened the rules concerning countywide tear restrictions. He's also considering a statewide curfew, a tactic that has had success in other nations and regions of the country, but not everyone is on board with business closures and tighter restrictions to fight the virus and San Diego is starting to crack down. Joining me is San Diego union Tribune, reporter Paul Sisson, and Paul welcome. Thanks for having me. Now, you reported that just yesterday, the County issued cease and desist orders against 17 businesses, which the County says are not in compliance with COVID restrictions. What kinds of businesses got those orders? Speaker 2: 00:56 It seems to break down into two main categories. You have restaurants, bars, and grills, uh, as well as, uh, athletic clubs and gyms, uh, one case, uh, a large chain fit athletic club, uh, which has five different, uh, cease and desist orders for five different locations that they operate. Uh, and then there is one church, uh, awaken church in Carlsbad. Speaker 1: 01:18 What legal wait does a cease and desist order have, right. Speaker 2: 01:21 I believe it's considered a misdemeanor punishable. Uh, I, uh, a fine of up to a thousand dollars per violation. There has been a little bit of a rub there in terms of actually doing the citations and fines that requires apparently the participation of local law enforcement. And they've been a little more reluctant to move forward with anything more than what they call education for folks who are violating the public held orders. Speaker 1: 01:46 So the County can issue a cease and desist order, but it's up to local law enforcement agencies to enforce. It Speaker 2: 01:53 Used to be the crux of it. It's, it's still a little murky in terms of exactly what the mechanics are there in terms of, you know, who needs to do an investigation and document, uh, whatever wrongdoing there was. Uh, the County also has the ability to go one level higher and issue a closure order where they can just force a business to shut down immediately. Uh, and they did that, uh, earlier in the year, uh, with the El pres restaurant in Pacific beach that had a viral video, uh, spread across the nation of, uh, unmasked patrons, uh, partying in the restaurant bank back during the summer Speaker 1: 02:28 Enforcement agencies in the County, telling you about their willingness to issue fines and citations in regard to businesses and, and people who don't comply. Speaker 2: 02:39 The folks we've spoken to at various different law enforcement agencies, uh, seem to feel that education is the more appropriate way to move forward with these issues. Uh, as, as they're reported by the public, uh, you know, for enforcement, uh, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of desire to take it much further than that. Uh, you know, the sense is that these businesses are all hurting and, and in a, in a normal environment without a pandemic present, that they would be engaging in law abiding behavior. So, so I think that, you know, there's just some reluctance from, from a workforce that has made their entire careers going after, uh, law breakers, uh, in a kind of a normal environment. So there is some pushback there. Speaker 1: 03:20 Sure. And meanwhile, a number of San Diego businesses are challenging the COVID restrictions in court. What's their argument. Speaker 2: 03:27 Their argument is that, you know, a, these regulations infringe on certain constitutional rights and B, uh, that the County has been, um, hit and miss in terms of enforcement. This started with, uh, several adult clubs here in town that pursued a similar, uh, request for an injunction, uh, a few weeks ago and managed to, uh, to get a ruling last week. And so the idea there is just that, uh, you know, you need to be completely consistent. They, they pointed to some other businesses that were allowed to have live entertainment throughout the city. Uh, and so, um, so there's kind of a two-pronged argument infringement on basic rights, uh, also, uh, an uneven inconsistent, uh, Speaker 1: 04:09 And so the adult clubs were successful in their case. Speaker 2: 04:12 Uh, so far they have another hearing scheduled for November 30th, uh, but they were indeed, uh, successful in getting a temporary injunction to stop the County from enforcing its cease and desist orders that were issued against those clubs earlier when they, uh, when they were found to have had a live entertainment going on inside. Speaker 1: 04:30 What about the status of the lawsuits these other business have against the COVID restrictions Speaker 2: 04:36 That, uh, that hearing was to take place today on Tuesday. Uh, but yesterday was, uh, moved to Thursday with no explanation. Uh, so we should, we should hear a preliminary hearing, uh, on Thursday to decide whether those plaintiffs will, uh, be victorious and, and be somewhat exempt from cease and desist orders, uh, going forward. Speaker 1: 04:57 Tell us more about this stricter measures. The governor has put into place to try to stop the surge Speaker 2: 05:02 Yesterday. The governor came out and, uh, announced that additional counties throughout the state would, uh, would fall a two year immediately. Uh, some of which had only had one week of, um, case rates, uh, that were outside of the thresholds for the current tiers that they were in. So now we have suddenly 41 counties across the state in the purple tier, which is where we as a, as a County where San Diego landed last week. And so, uh, you know, that is kind of the main change that the governor made yesterday, just moving very quickly to drop people down to, uh, many of them, the lowest purple tier, which requires businesses, restaurants, uh, houses of worship, you know, movie theaters, and such to do only outdoor operations. And then in addition to that, you know, the governor has talked about things like curfews, you know, he hasn't really said much, uh, about exactly how a curfew might work in California, but he said he's, uh, studying up on it as we speak. Speaker 2: 06:03 Uh, and then, uh, additionally, uh, there are also talking about how, uh, they're still trying to come up with some good guidance statewide for there to be athletic competitions, especially youth athletic competitions. Uh, the governor said yesterday that he had literally signed some guidance finally, that everybody's been waiting for. And then that was put on hold by the surge of cases that we've seen across the state. Uh, so that really is a major setback for folks who are currently, uh, traveling out of state for athletic competitions to States like Arizona or more direct competition is loud. Speaker 1: 06:36 These tighter measures being adopted because the state believes COVID case numbers are going to get even worse. Speaker 2: 06:42 Yeah. They, uh, they talked a lot yesterday about what they're seeing in the, you know, in the trajectory of the numbers. Uh, you know, our case rate in, in California is still, I believe under 5% and it's, uh, it's much higher in other States, uh, many in the Midwest that have seen, uh, you know, significantly larger percentages of a test coming back positive. I was looking at the numbers on the, uh, South Dakota public health website last night. And their positivity rate is for tests is over 20%. Uh, so we're, we're nowhere there yet. And the state's, uh, whole rationale is, you know, we don't want to get there. Yes. Uh, when you put our positivity rate up against others, it's still low, but we're seeing a rate of increase that's, uh, you know, something like 51% increase in a single week in early November. So the idea is, you know, that the slope of that line is steeper than it was, uh, in the spring and early summer when we saw our last big spike. So we know that, uh, that tells us that we need to get more strict right now to avoid that peak that we know is coming. Speaker 1: 07:40 I've been speaking with San Diego union Tribune, reporter Paul Sisson, Paul. Thank you. Thank you. We'll have more about the challenges facing young athletes because of COVID later in our show,