[From Jordan Cunningham, State Assembly]
Yesterday, during a public health presentation to the Democrat-controlled Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, County Public Health Director Dr. Van Do-Reynoso called the Governor’s new reopening criteria “unreasonable” and “insurmountable.”
The board, comprised of three Democrats, one Republican and one NPP, voted unanimously to send a letter to the Governor objecting to his one-size-fits-all reopening criteria that he outlined last week. Specifically, the board asked the Governor to exclude positive COVID-19 cases at the Lompoc Federal Prison from the county’s case count; change the new case criteria to a standard positivity rate under 10 percent; and change the fatality metric from zero deaths to a low fatality rate of 2 percent.
The letter also points out the state’s “conflicting approach” of forcing the counties to increase testing, while also not allowing counties to open if that increased testing results in an increase in the number of positive COVID-19 cases.
The board’s letter comes one day after Assemblyman Cunningham and North County leaders sent a letter asking CDPH to exclude Lompoc Federal Prison cases from Santa Barbara County’s count, as the positive cases at the federal prison skews the County’s data.
According to an analysis done by the Los Angeles Times, 95% of Californians live in counties that cannot meet the Governor’s criteria.
Santa Barbara County’s Public Health Officer is correct: the Governor’s directive is unreasonable and insurmountable.
