California Imposes Nighttime COVID-19 Curfew But Some Resist

Speaker 1: 00:00 The hopes and fears surrounding California's new curfew. Speaker 2: 00:04 You can shorten the hours when people might be gathering and still urge mask wearing and social distancing that can make a difference. Speaker 1: 00:13 And Maureen Kavanaugh, this is KPBS midday edition. Why a blue wave fail to sweep in more California Democrats? Speaker 3: 00:29 So I think it's this ticket splitting where we see very close contest between Republican and democratic house members, but Joe biding enjoying, uh, more of a comfortable lead Speaker 1: 00:39 And the symphonies back at Copley hall, that, and more on our weekend preview stay with us for midday edition coming up next. Speaker 3: 00:47 Yeah. Speaker 1: 01:00 Reactions to the partial. Stay at home order issued by state officials. Thursday have been both mixed and muted. The order calls for a curfew beginning tomorrow on people in businesses between the hours of 10:00 PM and 5:00 AM. Speaker 3: 01:15 Why are we doing this? And what are we hoping to gain? It's really to avoid further restrictions. We know, and we've seen in the past that COVID goes from zero to 60 miles per hour, very quickly that we were in a place today, but that can rapidly change. Maybe not statewide, maybe just in a handful of counties, but further restrictions is what we hope to avoid. But all tools are on the table. We have sort of that top shelf of the toolbox. We continue to use those tools, but on that bottom shelf, if necessary, we will explore further restrictions, but we hope today's actions, our collective coming together, our resolve to, um, you know, keep our protective, uh, behaviors up will help us STEM the tide and bring these surgery numbers down very, very soon. Speaker 1: 02:05 Exceptions include essential workers, minor excursions to walk the dog or pick up a few groceries and delivery of food from restaurants. Critics say this sends the wrong message to businesses. Who've been struggling to adhere to strict safety measures, but since the curfew falls largely overnight, it may not have much impact on most people's lives and activities. Joining me is Barbara fader Ostroff, a reporter with Cal matters and Barbara, welcome to the program. Thank you. Now, first of all, this is not really a statewide curfew. Is it how much of California is affected by this new order? No, Speaker 2: 02:42 Not statewide. It applies only to counties in the most restrictive purple tier of California's reopening plan, but it does affect nearly all Californians. About 95% of us live in the 41 counties currently in the purple tier. Speaker 1: 02:57 Why do state officials that they are imposing this overnight curfew now? Speaker 2: 03:02 Well, California had earlier seemed to Dodge the surge of cases that we've been seeing around the nation, particularly in the Midwest, but in the past couple of weeks, the state health officials have been really concerned because our cases and hospitalizations have shot up sharply. There were more than 11,000 cases reported a couple of days ago, and that number seems to be going up. State officials also say that they're concerned about people gathering or traveling for Thanksgiving. And they're trying to curb the expected spike in cases after the holiday. Speaker 1: 03:35 How did they think specifically though, that this overnight curfew will decrease the growing number of cases? Speaker 2: 03:41 There's evidence that gatherings that go beyond your household, especially at bars and restaurants, where it's tougher to wear a mask all the time are a key way to spread the virus. Officials are hoping that reducing the amount of time that people can do that will help reduce the number of cases. Is that, Speaker 1: 03:59 Is there any consensus among scientists that curfews work in slowing down infectious diseases? Speaker 2: 04:06 No, sadly there is not there's little evidence that curfews by themselves can stop the spread of disease and some epidemiologists call them public health theatre, a feel good move that politicians can make that appears to be a strong action. But other experts say that every little bit helps. If you can shorten the hours when people might be gathering and still urge mask wearing and social distancing, that can make a difference, especially when COVID transmission in the community is high. Speaker 1: 04:38 Well now here in San Diego County, sheriff bill Gore is creating an enforcement team of deputies to make sure there's compliance with public health orders, but law enforcement officials have not had that same reaction across the state. Have they? Speaker 2: 04:52 Nope. Dr. Mark golly. The state's top health officials said in a press conference yesterday that the state wants to take a reasonable approach to enforcing the curfew. You won't be cited for walking your dog after 10:00 PM, for example, but some sheriffs, especially for more conservative counties, like Fresno said, they would not enforce the curfew. And some people also worry about disproportionate enforcement of the curfew in communities of color as happened during the black lives matter protest earlier this year. Speaker 1: 05:24 Is it up to the counties to decide to what degree they want to go along with the new stay at home order? Speaker 2: 05:30 Well, this is a statewide order. So counties do have to abide by it. However enforcement can vary between counties. Yeah, Speaker 1: 05:39 It seems as if most businesses won't be terribly affected by the new curfew restrictions, but California businesses in general are getting increasingly antsy about how the overall restrictions are coming down on them. Can you tell us about some complaints? You've heard. Speaker 2: 05:54 Sure. We hear all the time from restaurants and bars that they just can't keep a float under the restrictions. They're asked to abide by, uh, we talked to Rob Lapsley, the president of the California business round table, and he said, this was a particularly bad time for a curfew coming into the holiday season because that's when some businesses make most of their money for the year, restaurants do Thanksgiving dinners and retail stores may stay up in late for Christmas shoppers. None of that's going to be able to happen now after 10:00 PM, 10:00 PM and R Speaker 1: 06:29 Business groups demanding a state stimulus package since they haven't seen anything from the, the national government. Speaker 2: 06:36 Yes, they've said that the state has more money than an anticipated. Uh, some new estimates recently came out so that, uh, that surplus should be shared with struggling businesses Speaker 1: 06:48 When state health and human services director, dr. Galley, who you referenced, announced the restrictions yesterday. Did he hint that there could be tighter public health measures to come? Speaker 2: 06:59 It's always possible, but the state had already put into place tighter measures a week earlier, including pushing counties into the purple tier more quickly and toughening up the state's mask order. So it's unclear and we'll have to stay tuned. Speaker 1: 07:15 Okay. Hey, we will. I've been speaking with Barbara fader. Ostrov a reporter with Cal matters. Thank you so much, Barbara. Speaker 2: 07:22 Thank you. Speaker 1: 07:36 More than two weeks after election day, two of California's congressional districts remain uncalled, but we already know that the blue wave from 2018 when Democrats flipped several Republican seats, didn't hold up so well in 2020 K QEDs guy Maserati spoke with California report host Lily Jamali about this and here's that interview. So California has 53 congressional Speaker 4: 08:01 Remind us where things stand. Well, we know Democrats are going to hold the vast majority of those congressional seats at the end of this election. What we're really focused on is the seven seats that flipped from Republican to Democrats in 2018, as part of that so-called blue wave and it looks like Republicans could make huge gains in taking back. A lot of those seats currently, they will. They know they're going to control two of those seven seats going into next year and there's still vote counting happening in two more of those seats. One is in the 21st district, which spans from outside of Fresno, down to the outskirts of Bakersfield. That's where David validates Republican is trying to take back his old seat. And then in the 25th district, North of Los Angeles, that's Katie Hill's, uh, old district before she resigned, um, Republicans, uh, lead in both of those vote counts. So at the end of this, they might get back four of those seven seats and Lily that's part of a nationwide trend where we've seen Republicans have unexpected success in these house, uh, elections, according to the cook political report, none of the seats that they rated as toss up have been won by Democrats. Speaker 5: 09:09 That's so interesting. So guy, as we see Democrats losing a couple of these seats that they were able to flip two years ago, I got to ask, why do you think that is? Speaker 4: 09:18 I think what might be going on here is the fact that in 2018, it was the kind of the culmination of frustration and discuss that a lot of Californians had with the president presidency of Donald Trump that built throughout 2017 and throughout 2018, the only recourse that voters had, uh, at the ballot box in, in those cases to express their dislike of Donald Trump was to vote out the Republican house member two years later, those same voters in California still don't like Donald Trump, but they have a new, uh, recourse to take. And that is directly vote against Trump vote for Joe Biden while still may be choosing to vote for Republican and a house seat. So I think it's this ticket splitting where we see very close contests between Republican and democratic house members, but Joe Biden enjoying a more of a comfortable lead. Speaker 5: 10:05 And one of the things that's so interesting about what you've been doing is you are watching these vote counts, get updated each and every day. What are some of the insights that you're gleaning from that in terms of how this year, this election was different from the 2018 midterms? Speaker 4: 10:19 Well, yeah, Lily has been really interesting to watch because in years, past California Republicans have embraced early male voting with Democrats, making up more of the provisional and late mail ballots that get counted late in the process. So in 2018, we saw these tight congressional races that initially trended Republican flipped blue as these mail ballots and provisional ballots got added in 2020 that's flipped. And, you know, as we watched these returns come in after election day, Democrats are not making up grounds. And I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the country's top Republican Donald Trump falsely casting doubt for months on mail-in ballots, leading many Republicans, I think to abandon early male voting and thus have their votes counted later Speaker 1: 11:01 Was KQBD guy Maserati speaking with California report host Lily Jamali. This is KPBS mid day edition. I'm Maureen Kavanaugh. This week, our weekend preview offers lots of opportunities to stop worrying about what you're going to do for Thanksgiving. The San Diego symphony returns to Copley symphony hall plus works by emerging black playwrights new choreography from San Diego dance theater, a virtual night of contemporary instrumental music and new works on view by painter Brian, Allie Sanchez. And joining me is KPBS arts director, Juliet Dixon Evans. Julia, welcome. Speaker 5: 11:43 Hi Maureen. Thanks for having me. Let's Speaker 1: 11:45 Start with the San Diego symphony is returned to Copley symphony hall. What can we expect is as we listened from home? Yeah, they're Speaker 5: 11:54 Pulling this off with a few smaller ensembles and a pretty well orchestrated COVID routine. No pun intended there. I can't help, but think that these selections seem to have been chosen by director Rafael PRA to showcase these smaller ensembles and maybe even just the joy and playfulness of finally getting to perform together again. So we have some sonatas from a few lesser known Baroque composers, including one Giovanni Gabrieli who often instructed the brass instruments to serenade from the balcony for an effect while the symphony sent their horns to the balcony to for social distancing, it's kind of a two birds, one stone effect, and we have Chevallier Dysinger George, who was one of the earliest known black classical composers, a Venezuelan fugue and waltz, and a lush serenade for wind instruments by divorce Speaker 6: 13:15 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 13:15 That's divorced serenade for wind instruments in D minor. The San Diego symphony will stream a free performance tonight at seven. Also tonight for the theater minded, we can check out new emerging black LGBTQ women's voices. Tell us about soul kiss theaters offering. Speaker 5: 13:36 Yeah, soul kiss is the brain child of Mickey Vale who is pretty busy in the playwriting and rap and hip hop worlds in town. They've hosted a small playwriting workshop there for black women and wrote six new short works. It's a wide range of styles and backgrounds represented. For example, there's Kayla Ray, who is an active duty military, black lesbian single mother whose work reflects her experience. There's writer, Keisha Lynn, more Elliott who has a book out that champions representation in art and LA based hip hop artists, queen candy Cole who's said she always loves the storytelling element of hip hop and has a new comedy work. There is many more and it's totally worth tuning into to listen to these up-and-coming voices. The whole workshop was in partnership with the old globe, Speaker 1: 14:28 A night of new playwrights by soul kiss theater broadcasts online tonight at seven San Diego dance theater has a new program this weekend fall in love with dance again, how can we watch and what do we know about it? Speaker 5: 14:43 Yeah, it's filmed and streaming virtually through the weekend and they've put together two brand new works and a reemergence of one of founder, Jean Isaac's older pieces called cabaret dances, which is from 2010. The new works include a piece that tells this haunting story of the many bombings of the small nation of Laos. And then there's Terry Wilson's take on poetry, blending the work of Pablo Neruda, Rumi, and more with choreography along with a new composition by Armand Amar. I love it when spoken word or narrations paired with dance. So there should be a really lovely set. Speaker 1: 15:22 San Diego dance theaters fall in love with dance. Again, streams to night and Saturday at 7:30 PM and Sunday at five 30, San Diego, new music brings a new virtual program in partnership with the Athenaeum. Tell us about that. Speaker 5: 15:39 Yeah. So San Diego has this really vital experimental and contemporary music scene. And this Saturday you can check it out. There's a great lineup with percussionists, Nathan Hubbard, trumpeter, Rachel Allen and harpist, Tasha Smith Godinez. Rachel Allen will perform some intriguing contemporary works for trumpet. Look, little low heavens by Hillary tan and fanfare for the women by Libby Larsen. And along with an improvisation piece, Nathan Hubbard will perform some of his own compositions for tuned percussion, as well as some more experimental instruments like resonant metals and electronics and harvest Tasha Smith Godinez will perform a world premier work, and then another piece called mobile active simulated humanoids by Jose Gloria Cardenas. And here's a clip of Godinez playing that piece. Speaker 7: 16:56 Okay. Speaker 1: 16:56 It's Tasha Smith Godinez performs online with Nathan Hubbard and Rachel Allen in digital doses with San Diego, new music. That's Saturday at 7:30 PM. And in the visual art world, there's a new exhibition on display at bread and salt. What can we expect there? Speaker 5: 17:15 Yeah, it's Barrio Logan born and raised painter, Brian Ali Sanchez. He has a new exhibition of paintings on view right now, and it's viewable by appointment during their gallery hours and masks serve required, uh, Sanchez work studies inequality in the working class, kind of cliche and trauma that's associated with border culture and his own experience of a misplaced identity as a first-generation Mexican American, his paintings are really vivid and textual like with thick oils and exaggerated brush strokes, but there's a lot of softness and abstraction and his details. And these are huge paintings. So if you're willing to make an appointment to see them, you'll be rewarded, but you can also get a good sense of his work online Speaker 1: 18:00 In search of by Brian Ali Sanchez is on view now at bread and salt by appointment Tuesday through Saturday through December 5th, for more arts events go to kpbs.org/arts or sign up for our weekly KPBS arts newsletter. And I've been speaking as always with KPBS arts editor and producer Julia Dickson Evans. Thank you, Julia. Speaker 5: 18:24 Thanks for having me, Maureen, have a great weekend. Speaker 1: 18:27 So many things are different about this Thanksgiving for so many people, but one thing is the same. Chef Bernard gas will be on midday edition next Wednesday, to answer your Thanksgiving questions, record your Thanksgiving questions on our phone line (619) 452-0228. Or you can find us on Twitter at KPBS midday. Speaker 5: 18:50 Okay.