FOLSOM, Calif. — California leaders sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Health and Human Services Agency on Wednesday, asking them to reconsider the state’s reopening strategy. They’re asking the governor to authorize reopenings by zip code instead of by county.
Folsom Mayor Sarah Arquino is one of the people who signed the letter.
“We’re in unprecedented times, right?” asked Arquino. “So we are writing the rules, and sometimes you have to rewrite the rules when they’re not working.”
She says the current reopening strategy is too broad.
“To do everything county by county, it’s kind of these arbitrary lines,” said Arquino. “And we’re just asking, let’s try to look at things a little bit more granularly.”
Sue Frost, Sacramento County Supervisor for District 4, also signed the request for a more focused reopening approach and said the city of Folsom illustrates the problem with the state’s broad approach.
“They’re backed up to the foothills, just a mile or two away from El Dorado Hills, which is open,” said Frost. “They have very low incidence of COVID, and yet all of their customers are driving over the hill to El Dorado Hills.”
Mayor Arquino agrees that something needs to be done.
“It’s just frustrating for our merchants and for our residents to know that, one freeway exit up, the rules are completely different,” said Arquino.
She pointed out that other places in the country are basing their reopening on zip codes.
“The state of New York is actually using the zip code approach very effectively,” said Arquino. “Because they’re analyzing the data and tracking the data at that very local level, they’re allowed to allocate... the public health resources to those hot spots and get those areas under control without holding back the rest of the state economically.”
Supervisor Frost said she hopes the state will meet them half-way.
“We need to start opening this up, and we’re just trying to think out of the box and see if the state will consider helping us, if they’ll consider thinking out of the box and investing in some systems that will help us open more quickly in those areas where it’s safe to do so,” she said.
In response to the call for zip code reopenings, the California Department of Public Health said they'll take a "slow and stringent approach" with California's Blueprint for a Safer Economy with flu season not far away.
“California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy is a science and data-based approach for tightening and loosening restrictions on our economy. We are always happy to talk to stakeholders about what future iterations to the Blueprint might look like, but with flu season right around the corner, we are taking a slow and stringent approach to protect the health of all Californians.”
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