Jordan Cunningham blasts new lockdown order, says SLO County shouldn’t be lumped with LA
With the Central Coast appearing to be days away from a second stay-at-home order due to a resurgence of COVID-19 cases, newly re-elected state Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham on Thursday slammed the order’s parameters as “a joke.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday introduced a new regional stay-at-home order what would require millions of Californians to remain in their homes as much as possible to prevent overwhelming regional intensive care units.
The order, which could go into effect at any time, would include further restrictions on restaurants and other non-essential businesses in four of the state’s five designated regions, including the Southern California region, where the state placed San Luis Obispo County.
The order will go into effect within 48 hours in regions with less than 15% ICU bed availability; the Southern California region is expected to reach the state’s limit by Friday. The state may lift the order when a region’s ICU usage drops below 85% of its capacity.
Cunningham — who was a fundamental player in the construction of an emergency COVID-19 patient care facility at Cal Poly in April — has been critical of the governor’s anti-coronavirus measures.
Following Newsom’s announcement Thursday afternoon, the Republican legislator questioned via tweet why San Luis Obispo County, which he said currently has just 2% of its ICU beds occupied, is being lumped in with Los Angeles, which reported 44 deaths Thursday and has 76% of its ICU beds filled, according to ABC7-TV.
“For the life of me, I cannot understand how the entirety of ‘southern’ California is a single region,” Cunningham tweeted early Thursday afternoon. “That’s 20 million people. How are SLO and (Santa Barbara) counties included with Los Angeles?”
“Only about 2 percent of SLO County’s ICU beds are occupied ... but we are shut down because the governor ties us to the situation in LA ... over 200 miles away? What a joke,” he tweeted shortly after.
His office released an official statement Thursday afternoon.
“The governor’s most recent order, which will lead to a lockdown of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, is arbitrary, irrational, and bordering on punitive,” Cunningham wrote. “As of now, we have plenty of hospital and ICU capacity here on the Central Coast. We cannot be shutting down local businesses — many of which have spent tens of thousands of dollars to retrofit their operation in order to comply with yesterday’s public health orders — because of limited ICU capacity in counties hundreds of miles from our community.”
He continued: “There is no science-based, rational reason to group the Central Coast counties in with Los Angeles, Imperial, Riverside, or San Bernardino counties. His ‘Southern California’ region is 20 million people and 350 miles north to south.”
Cunningham called on the governor to “alter this nonsensical regional map to better take into account our area’s unique situation and hospital bed capacity.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 6:39 PM.
