Los Angeles County officials say they plan to engineer a “safe reopening’’ of the local economy as early as July 4.
The date emerged this month during the second meeting of the county’s Economic Resiliency Task Force—a collection of elected officials and business leaders assembled to recommend steps for creating jobs and returning the county to full employment.
“I understand the urgency to reopen and know many of the experts the county has assembled for this task force have been working hard to develop safe and efficient plans to revitalize their sectors as early as next month,’’ County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a statement. “I remain focused on working with industry leaders and health officials to safely make way for Los Angeles County to reopen by the Fourth of July.’’
At the county’s daily coronavirus briefing, Supervisor Hilda Solis and Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer tried to stress that the July 4 date is just a goal, but the mission is to reopen the economy sooner than later, recognizing that residents are growing weary of continued stay-at-home restrictions. But unless people stick to the restrictions, reopening the county will take longer, they said.
“That (July) is a goal, but we have to get there, and we have to do it by measurements, we have to do it by scientific evidence and data and making sure everybody is adhering to the public health order,’’ Solis said. “And I can tell you as one supervisor, I have a great deal of concern that some people are not listening to that message.’’
Ferrer acknowledged the frustration as the slow pace of businesses reopening.
“Everyone is fatigued and I think we all feel like enough is enough,’’ she said. “I wish the virus said enough is enough, also. I wish it would just go away, and I know you all agree with me. We wish this wasn’t going on so long and why is reopening so hard. And I think we all really felt like once we started to reopen, everything was going to be good and we were just going to be able to move on pretty quickly.”
