Mayor Elect Todd Gloria On The Challenges Facing San Diego

The countdown to new coronavirus restrictions is on in San Diego County. Many businesses have just two days left to prepare to operate in the state's purple, most restrictive covid-19 tier. At Point Loma Sports Club, staff are getting ready to move all operations outdoors. They've put more than a hundred thousand pounds of equipment in their Liberty Station parking lot. Point Loma resident Nate Dimelfi says the gym is a place that's important for his physical health but also mental health. He's grateful Point Loma Sports Club is adapting during the pandemic. “Part of the reason why I even started coming I was in a really low place mentally during highschool so i started coming to the gym to get rid of anxiety and stress that i have." Gyms will have to move outdoors by Saturday or face possible fines. Restaurants, places of worship and museums are among the other kinds of business thatwill also have to either move outside, offer pickup, or close for now. Meanwhile….San Diego county's regression into the purple tier has some people asking "why." Dr. Christian Ramers (RAY-mers) of the Family Health Centers has some answers. He says the weather has driven more people inside where transmission is easier. He also believes there is complacency – too many people simply aren’t wearing masks or social distancing. He told KPBS that the complacency isn’t for lack of information. "But the way human beings make decisions have to do with our own experience. So people who have not seen this up close may be still not very afraid of it. And those like myself who have seen people suffer and die from it know that this is something very serious that nobody should want to get no matter what your age is." He says a vaccine is still months away, at best, and San Diegans cannot stop taking precautions. It’s Thursday, November 11th. You’re listening to San Diego News Matters from KPBS News. I’m Annica Colbert. Stay with me for more of the local news you need to start your day. As coronavirus infections continue to rise nationally and in California, health care workers are sounding the alarm about hospital capacity and burnout. CapRadio’s Nicole Nixon reports. NURSES [BODY :53] Members of the California Nurses Association held rallies at hospitals across the state this week. They’re calling for better staffing as winter, the holidays and an expected spike in cases approach.At UC Davis Health in Sacramento, nurse Melissa Johnson-Camacho says workers are being denied time-off requests through the end of the year… unless they become sick.JOHNSON-CAMACHO: Nurses are really — they’re afraid, and they’re burnt out. It’s just a really bad combination. And I think management needs to really practice what they preach. <<:09>>She holds up a sign that says “see me as a person.” It’s a mantra she says the hospital uses to promote compassion for patients and their families.A spokesperson for UC Davis Health said in a statement that most of its nurses have scheduling flexibility and special COVID-19 sick leave. The hospital also says its nurses’ overtime hours are down this year over last.SOC As we’ve said, San Diego is moving into the state’s coronavirus purple tier. KPBS investigative reporter Claire Traegeser has a deeper look at how that eventually came to be. It was the middle of the afternoon, and El Toro Grill Taqueria in City Heights was completely empty of customers. Still, owner Maribel Estrada was hustling through her small restaurant. She took orders over the phone and through a walk-up ordering window she'd made that opened to the street. "When we were at 25% capacity, that's three tables inside.That's not much, but it was helping a little." Unfortunately, Estrada can kiss those three tables goodbye for the time being. San Diego County has sunk back to the dreaded purple tier, the worst possible ranking in California's system meant to control COVID-19 spread. For months, San Diego County stayed in a narrow range, teetering on the edge of the red and purple tiers. Yet, we haven't seen a huge surge in cases or hospitalizations as is happening in other parts of the country, which is exactly what the tier system is meant to prevent, says San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher. "The tier system is designed so we don't wake up and have a problem like we're seeing in other states, we have checks that stop you before you hit true exponential spread and growth. It's a system that's working well for California right now." Along with the tier system keeping restrictions in place based on case counts, the San Diego region has had good weather on its side. Rebecca Fielding-Miller is an epidemiologist at UC San Diego. She says good weather helps people stay outside, where COVID-19 is far less likely to spread. "After those heat waves over Labor Day, I was curious to see if we'd have spikes in cases, because if it's 100 degrees in San Diego, people will go inside...00:15:04:19 after that heat wave in late September, you see cases climb, so you can see a pattern in the data." As rain and colder weather comes in the next few months, Fielding-Miller worries that more people will take their gatherings inside, which could increase spread. Fletcher says he hopes the tier system doesn't come under attack if that does happen. "We have to recognize and understand that there is no economic recovery when you have increases in cases. That's not just because of the tier system and restrictions, but that's the general public that is not comfortable and confident and willing to go out and do these types of things." Fletcher added that he believes the county would have been better off if it had opened more gradually in July when the tier system was implemented rather than immediately opening all establishments that were allowed under the red tier. "We opened everything associated with red the very first day that we could, and I strongly felt that we needed to wait, we were on a downward trajectory. Get down to where you have really low spread and then when you have really low spread, then you can be a little more open with some of the things you're doing without the risk of closing people down." That may be true, but El Toro Grill owner Estrada isn't sure she can hang on much longer. "We don't have a lot of space outside, only four tables outside. And we've had a lot of problems with homeless people bothering customers." She and her husband have run the restaurant for 10 years, but without indoor dining, she says they could close in a matter of months. Claire Trageser, KPBS News In an effort to trace and combat COVID 19 cases, a new testing center in Vista opened WEDNESDAY. KPBS North County reporter Tania Thorne gives us the details. A new COVID-19 testing center opened in Vista at the Linda Rhodes Recreation Center in an effort to combat the spread of the virus. The school district partnered with the county and city to open the new testing site in support of a school reopening plan. Vista Unified school district said in a statement that they, quote, "remain committed to working in collaboration with the community to find solutions and pathways for students to return to on-campus, in-person learning." The free testing center will be open to the public seven days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m starting Wednesday. TT KPBS News A survey of the needs of City Heights Youth has been turned into a virtual photography exhibition that will open tonight. KPBS reporter Max Rivlin-Nadler tells us the pandemic has highlighted the urgent issues that City Heights Youth are fighting for. The group Youth For Change began surveying City Heights Youth in 2016, after young people in the community signaled they weren't being listened to by community leaders. That survey found common ground among youth on the need for changes in law enforcement, street safety, cleanliness, and educational opportunities. Now, it's been turned into a virtual exhibition by young photographers -- after a physical exhibition was postponed in late March. Famo Musa [Notes:Fam-o Mew-sa] is one of the organizers. She says the needs of young people can't be ignored any longer. Since everything is online and virtual and more people are open to it, it's more public, people can't ignore it anymore basically. Now they're in your face, you kind of have to listen to them. The puppetry, virtual exhibition, and a panel discussion go live on Thursday at 5pm. You can find more details on KPBS.org. Max Rivlin-Nadler, KPBS News. Coming up on the podcast….We have an interview with new Mayor-Elect Todd Gloria about his victory over City Councilwoman Barbara Bry. We’ll also have a fact check on what Conservative groups are saying about Calfiornians voting in Nevada. That’s just after this break. Conservative groups continue to make unproven claims about voter fraud in the presidential election. Some have even suggested that Californians unlawfully helped President-elect Joe Biden win Nevada. CapRadio’s PolitiFact California reporter Chris Nichols has the story. Last week, President Donald Trump’s campaign and Nevada Republicans claimed that thousands of people who moved out of Nevada still voted there in the election. They even published a list of these allegedly fraudulent voters. The problem? Some of them are members of the military deployed overseas, Others are likely students from Nevada ‘going to college in another state, potentially in California. Or people who have moved out of state within 30 days, All three groups were allowed to vote in Nevada’s election. Fred Lokken is a political science professor at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno. He described the claim that Californians may have fraudulently voted in large numbers in Nevada as “not accurate” and “simply noise.” He noted that Biden has a 36,000 vote lead in the state. “You need to be fighting things of consequence that would suggest to me that you could somehow alter the outcome of the election. At this point in time, I haven’t heard anything other than unique or anecdotal.” This week, the conservative watchdog group Election Integrity Project claimed more than 1,400 Californians may have unlawfully voted in Nevada. It sent its findings to the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office, which says it will thoroughly investigate all credible allegations of wrongdoing. It notes, however, that many voter fraud complaints lack any evidence. In Sacramento, I’m Chris Nichols. On December 10th, Democrat Todd Gloria will become the new mayor of San Diego. The former San Diego city councilman and member of the State Assembly inherits a city that is going through a tough time. The COVID-19 pandemic has shut down a lot of San Diego businesses, and that's hit the city's budget very hard. Gloria spoke about the challenges ahead with KPBS Midday Edition host Maureen Cavanaugh. That was Mayor-Elect Todd Gloria speaking with KPBS Midday Host Maureen Cavanaugh. That’s it for the podcast today, thanks for listening and have a great day.