California Governor provides update on state’s response to Covid-19 during press conference
California Governor Gavin Newsom gave an update on the state’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic at a press conference Monday, June 15th .
During his speech, Governor Newsom detailed the different measures that the state has taken in order to decrease the spreading of the virus and provided an update to people on the progress it has made in meeting this goal and the goals he looks to reach in the future.
Governor Newsom said that the state continues to have a direct focus on addressing the spread of Covid-19, stating that the spreading has stabilized thanks to the number of tests that have been provided.
“We’ve focused on the foundational responsibility of testing so we can get a better sense of what’s happening in the community, understanding the prevalence of this disease and the spread of this disease,” Governor Newsom explained.
This was said on the same day that an update on the Los Angeles County Public Health website reported an additional 1071 new cases of Covid-19, including 19 deaths bringing the confirmed case total for the county up to 73,791 and the total number of deaths up to 2962.
Governor Newsom pointed out that though the number of positive Covid-19 cases have increased, the rate at which people are testing positive has not. He said there is a significant decline from the 40.8% figure in the first two weeks of April of this year, dropping to roughly 4.5% percent based on a 7 to 14-day average.
“As we’ve increased the number of tests from less than 2000 a day to (as an example) the last two days — 78,000 tests on Saturday and some 66,000 tests on Sunday — the overall rate of positives have gone up but the positivity rate, the percentage of those tested that have actually been tested for covid-19 has declined and has flattened to roughly 4.5%,” Governor Newsom explained.
To further help decline the spread of Covid-19, Governor Newsom stressed the importance of procuring equipment for people to help them combat the virus such as masks, gowns, gloves and face shields not only for hospital employees but for other workers that have to deal with personal interaction such as transit workers and grocers.
“We’ve been working overtime to get this equipment to improve our supplies in our inventory,” Newsom explained while a slide showed the number of millions of items that have been added to the state’s protective inventory.
Newsome also highlighted the importance of vigilance for counties such as their ability to detect individuals who have either come in contact or have been tested for the virus, stating that he had a goal for July 1st where there would be 10,000 tracers trained.
“We already have or are in the process of completing training for over 7000 individuals-well on our way to meeting our phase one goal,” Newsome explained while an accompanying slide showed that 4,855 have enrolled in training to trace the virus with 2,243 people completing the training.” Governor Newsome said.
With the different number of precautions he brought up during the course of his press release, Governor Newsom made sure to let the residents of California know that the state still has a way to go before there is a sense of normalcy.
“We are not out of the woods,” Governor Newsom said.
Governor Newsom explained that as counties in the state start to reopen businesses to the public, that there will be an inevitable rise in the number of cases. However the Governor also stated it is the state’s capacity to address the increases in cases that is pertinent to keeping the virus from spreading any further.
“It is our capacity to address that that is so foundational and to make sure we are prepared for spikes,” Governor Newsom explained.
