California fucked up.

The Washington Post

Your questions, answered

“Why is California having so many problems with covid-19 after they were among the first states to shut down and Gov. [Gavin] Newsom has at least tried to stick to the protocols recommended by Congress?” — George in California

It comes down to several reasons, including the governor rolling back quarantine orders too soon; residents and some local officials refusing to follow safety guidelines; and a high poverty rate that left many people unable to protect themselves.

In short, California's relapse looks a lot like the whole country's, but in microcosm.

George is correct that his state was the first to embrace national guidelines (although they came from the White House, not Congress). In a bid to stop California from becoming the West Coast's New York, Newsom (D) issued the nation's first stay-at-home orders March 19. California's infection rate soon leveled off, and other states began to follow Newsom's example. For a time, California looked like a model of how to head off the pandemic.

Things began to fall apart as spring turned to summer. Encouraged by the numbers, Newsom allowed counties to begin loosening quarantine restrictions in May. Californians began venturing back into public, spreading infections that would take weeks to show up in state data.

In mid-June, despite some warning signs that covid-19 was making a comeback, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti let bars and restaurants reopen. “Health officials say 500,000 Angelenos filled local bars and restaurants the following day, upending expectations that residents would take the reopening cautiously,” The Post's senior national correspondent Scott Wilson reported. A wave of backyard barbecues and parties spread across the state as people incorrectly judged the crisis to be over.

Two weeks after the bars reopened, Scott reported, Los Angeles County's hospitals were nearly filled and covid-19 was surging in towns and cities all over the state.

Newsom has been trying to reverse course, but it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle. When he ordered all Californians to wear face masks June 18, several county sheriffs refused to enforce the order. When the governor ordered Fresno County, among several others, to re-close bars, officials refused to comply.

Infection rates began to surge — particularly in heavily Hispanic and Latino communities, where many residents held low-paying “essential” jobs, according to the MIT Technology Review. A screening project in San Francisco found that 9 in 10 people testing positive said they were unable to work from home.

Today, California has the third-highest average infection rate in the country behind Florida and Texas, adding nearly 9,000 new cases to the national tally each day. Even after adjusting for the state's huge population, it is in the top 10 states for new cases per capita, and its death rate is starting to tick up accordingly.