As protestors against California’s stay-at-home orders gathered in Newport Beach and Sacramento Monday, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia rebuked the idea, calling it “short-sighted and dangerous.”
He pleaded with locals not to follow suit and warned them that gathering for rallies is currently against the law.
“That is not productive. That is not helpful,” Garcia said. “It is dangerous, in my opinion, when individuals are gathered in groups that way.”
Long Beach so far hasn’t seen protests like the ones popping up across the country demanding an end to some rules meant to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In California, health officials say shuttering businesses, parks, beaches and just about everything else has successfully slowed the coronavirus’ spread, but it’s also put millions of people out of work.
As the economic pain mounts—and with hospitals so far managing the load of coronavirus patients—discontent has started to bubble up locally.
In Long Beach, a parks commissioner pushed for reopening golf courses and other recreational areas. An ex-city councilman, in an op-ed submitted to the Post, called for the city to let more businesses reopen with precautions. And a former city council candidate is trying to organize a protest.
Jesus Cisneros, who finished last in the race for the 2nd District City Council seat earlier this year, wants people to rally in front of the Civic Center next month while wearing masks and staying 6 feet apart.
“I would not do anything to endanger your family as I would not endanger mine. But we need our jobs back,” said Cisneros. “I will not have our people without money in their pockets and empty stomachs while people who still have jobs stay home and dictate who is essential and who is not.”
Cisneros has homed in on what he sees as the fundamental unfairness of government officials picking who can keep working and who is out of a paycheck.
“If we can wear a face mask and stand 6 feet apart at big corporate Walmart, Target and Costco, we can wear a facemask at small businesses that are the foundation of our community and supply our people with jobs,” Cisneros said.
But those arguments miss the point of the state and local stay-at-home orders, according to health experts.
“The goal was to have everybody at home,” Long Beach’s health officer, Dr. Anissa Davis said Monday. It’s not entirely safe for people to gather in businesses even if they keep their distance. People are only allowed to go out for certain things like groceries because officials decided the benefits for those trips outweigh the risks.
“You have to be able to have food,” Davis said. “You have to have your lights on.”
Twenty-four people diagnosed with COVID-19 have died in Long Beach—most of them in local nursing homes or long-term care facilities, and Davis said lifting the restrictions too early could lead to a resurgence of deaths, like it did with the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 when “the virus returned with a vengeance.”
State and local officials have both pledged they’ll be guided by testing and hospitalization benchmarks when they start lifting restrictions. Recently, Long Beach officials said the rate of spread may be slowing thanks to the restrictions, but hospitalizations have remained relatively steady between 40 and 50 people for the last two weeks.
“To me, the science and data is very clear,” Garcia said. “People need to continue to stay at home.”
It’s unclear if Cisneros’ protest will materialize. He has 126 followers on his Instagram, where he’s been promoting the demonstration, and a Facebook group that recently joined forces with him has only 12 members.
Amie Martinez, who administers a local COVID-19 awareness group with 5,642 members, said she sees more posts from people complaining about others flouting the rules than complaints about the stay-at-home orders.
When someone posted about Cisneros’ protest, Martinez eventually deleted it when the thread got out of hand and devolved into name-calling.
There’s been 95% support for the stay-at-home measures in LA County, according to polling data. Nationally, 66% of Americans say they’re more concerned about restrictions being lifted too quickly than too slowly, according to a study by Pew.
That same study, however, found a political divide. People who leaned Republican were more likely to be worried about the restrictions being in place too long.
Cisneros says his movement is nonpartisan, but shortly before he started promoting it on his Instagram, he was accusing Democrats of using the “crazy Chi-na Kung-flu communist damn virus” as a means to scare people and ruin the economy.
“Democrats want to control you!” He wrote. “It’s time to rise up!
Whether motivated by politics or economic anxiety, some medical workers worry the protests will undermine the daily sacrifices they’re making.
“It sucks to sit inside; it sucks to not have income, I get it, but it is also frustrating to health care workers that they are not understanding the seriousness of what’s happening,” said Shavon Bates, who works as an emergency medical technician at a local hospital.
Bates hasn’t seen her grandma, dad, sisters and niece in over a month for fear of exposing them to COVID-19. Before she comes home to her spouse, she makes sure to remove her scrubs and shoes.
Some of her co-workers have given up being at home with newborns, instead sleeping at Airbnbs or hotels.
“And I don’t think we would be doing all of this if it wasn’t for a good reason,” she said.