Will Rogers Beach and parking lot were packed on Sunday afternoon, June 14.
On Friday, Los Angeles County Supervisors sent the following message for the weekend of June 13-14: “No group activities, crowd gatherings, chairs, canopies, coolers, grills or sunbathing allowed on wet and dry sand. Public beach parking lots are open with limited capacity.”
Maybe the Supervisors should come out of their castles to see what the subjects are actually doing – which is not obeying some of the “laws” the County is putting out.
Starting with the evening neon tides in May, Will Rogers State Beach was filled with people. Some wore masks, many did not. The parking lots were closed, so cars were parked up both sides of Temescal Canyon Road and along PCH. The crowds were intense.
By Memorial Day weekend, even though people were warned “to keep moving,” the majority brought towels and food and found a nice place to picnic and enjoy the sun. Initially, the beach parking lots were kept to half capacity—and once again parking stacked up along PCH, Temescal Canyon, Channel Road and Castellammare. Santa Monica beach parking lots stayed closed, to limit crowds and keep people from parking too close to one another.
Circling the News received this note from a resident on June 12: “Yes, cars are always parked along Temescal by people who do not want to pay for parking, or the lot is full. Living here since 1995, I have never seen anything different.
“As far as the lot restriction, I do remember when they allowed cars back in [after the Covid-19 restriction was lifted], the rule was only half the capacity. The parking attendant standing at the lot entrance (with the gate closed behind him) was directing drivers to park on Temescal after the lot filled up to about half capacity. For some reason, I thought that restriction was still in effect. The parking lot [today] looked like a typical Sunday summer day — filled to capacity.
“It also appears that the restriction of not lounging is not in effect either (but was never enforced when the beach re-opened up anyway). I saw LAPD just standing and apparently not warning or advising folks they can’t put out their chairs or blankets down and veg. Neither was anything that I saw being done about mask restrictions. Most people were wearing, some not.”
Many people have stated that if the City or County were not enforcing social distancing or masks during the George Floyd demonstrations that started on May 26, then perhaps there wasn’t really a significant health concern.
FACTS AS OF JUNE 13:
Los Angeles County is leading the state with 2,832 Covid-19 deaths (out of 4,997).
In L.A. County, 1,352 of the deaths, or almost half, have been residents living in nursing homes.
About 93 percent of the people who have died in our county (2,643) had underlying conditions.
Positive cases of Covid-19 have gone up in Los Angeles County, but so has the testing with more than 761,000 people now tested. About eight percent of those tested are positive.
The L.A. County Department of Public Health is currently investigating 501 institutional facilities where there’s at least one confirmed case of Covid-19. These sites include nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, homeless shelters, treatment centers, supportive living, and correctional facilities. Director Barbara Ferrer said there have been 16,142 confirmed cases in these facilities.
During one of her briefings last week, Ferrer was asked if L.A. County was moving too rapidly to reopen. She said that people who are older and/or have underlying health conditions, making them more at risk of serious or fatal Covid-19 cases, should continue to stay at home and avoid many of the activities and places now getting back to business.
For everyone else, she advised people to assess the risk for themselves and “not to do activities that are beyond your comfort zone.”
Pacific Palisades had 10 Covid-19 cases on March 27, and the Highlands had 0. Ten weeks later (on June 14), there were 62 cases listed in the Palisades plus seven in the Highlands. A reminder that not everyone testing positive needs hospitalization.
The Wall Street Journal wrote in its June 13-14 editorial “The Covid Age Penalty” that “By now it’s clear that people older than 65 are the most vulnerable to the novel coronavirus, and the age penalty is especially severe for the elderly with underlying health conditions. …but it also means that states and cities should be able to lift their lockdowns safely if they focus on protecting vulnerable Americans.”
The story goes onto say “About 80 percent of Americans who have died of Covid-19 are older than 65, and the median age is 80.. . .For most people under the age of 65, a study found the risk of dying from Covid-19 isn’t much higher than from getting in a car accident driving to work.”
This graph was featured in the Wal Street Journal on June 13-14.
Thanks for this rare and balanced viewpoint on Covid-19. Rare to find in most opinion pieces now. I really found it informative and even-handed. Love Circling the News!