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In late May, when L.A. County officials began reopening stores, restaurants, barbershops and more, there were 2,209 people dead from COVID-19 in the county. Now, there are more than 5,112.
This is how we got here: https://www.latimes.com/projects/how-rushed-la-reopening-sparked-covid-19-cases/
This is how we got here: https://www.latimes.com/projects/how-rushed-la-reopening-sparked-covid-19-cases/
A team of LA Times reporters ( @sandhya__k, @jaclyncosgrove, @priyakkumar and @maloym and me) reviewed months of pressers and documents to understand why officials reopened in May. The plan had seemed to be to reopen by July and move slower than other counties. That didn't happen.
In a five-day span in May, LA officials reopened restaurants for indoor dining, hair salons, places of worship, in-store shopping at retail stores and malls. Then a few weeks later in June, while coronavirus cases were already climbing, they reopened gyms, wineries and bars.
The daily reported cases from coronavirus in LA County crossed 2,000 for the first time, and then crossed 3,000. Hospitalizations hit never-before-seen highs and officials warned of running out of ICU beds. The surges were so bad that many of the reopenings had to be reversed.
LA leaders are aware of their mistakes. In a recent presser, LA County public health director Barbara Ferrer said a main factor in reversing the alarming trends was closing the bars and limiting indoor dining.
"A few months ago, when ... we reopened many of our key businesses and community sectors, a lot of us decided that that meant we could resume life as we knew it before the pandemic hit. We simply can't do this again," Ferrer said on Aug. 3.
The main question is why no one acted to *prevent* these problems in the first place. Ferrer said for months that she wanted to go very slowly -- and then just didn't. As the bars were reopening, LA Mayor Garcetti said he wished they were waiting longer to take that step.
There's been a lot of finger-pointing. Garcetti says he had to open LA because other cities in LA County were opening. LA County officials say they had to open because neighboring counties were opening. But actually, leaders of any city/county could have opted to limit reopening
anyway please read our story!! it is a trip going back and hearing how officials used to talk about stuff. like how washing our hands would save us from the pandemic
also while reporting this we discovered that I am in one of the photos!! sort of appreciate that the last time I was in a large crowd has been memorialized but also my proximity to other humans makes me cringe so hard
this story required rewatching every LA County presser on covid going back months and made me very grateful for all the smart reporters in LA asking tough questions. a special shoutout to @CShalby and @ReporterClaudia, who usually asked the very question we needed to answer
