Feature: California residents support "stay at home" order to stop COVID-19

California Governor Gavin Newsom's order for the state's nearly 40 million residents to "stay at home" and "shelter in place" was met with a positive response in California (CA) during its first lockdown weekend.

RIGHT THING

Jeffrey Glover, a respected entertainment attorney in Santa Monica, CA, who quickly arranged to conduct his international legal practice online and by telephone, told Xinhua on Sunday that he thinks "CA and the United States should take a 30-day break. It seemed to work in China!"

Newsom became the first U.S. governor to take the drastic step of locking down an entire state in reaction to the rapid spread of the coronavirus, with the measure coming into force at midnight last Friday.

Warning that 56 percent of the state's residents, some 20 million people, could contract the virus in the next eight weeks, Newsom said the purpose of the lockdown is to protect California.

"This is a moment where we need some straight talk," Newsom told reporters. "As individuals and as a community, we need to do more to meet this moment. We are confident that the people of the state of California will abide by it and do the right thing."

Santa Barbara Mayor Cathy Murillo wholeheartedly supports the governor's actions. "Governor Newsom did the right thing with shutting down the state ... It was time," Murillo noted.

"Two weeks ago, we still had cruise ships coming into Santa Barbara, but the Coast Guard put a stop to that. Next, we shut our bars and restaurants, then the Public Library, and on Monday, we closed our schools," she added.

BUSINESS WILL COME BACK

After the governor's stay order, Murillo said that all but the most essential businesses are to stay closed in Santa Barbara, acknowledging that the city and local businesses, which heavily depend on tourism, will suffer a very hard setback for now.

"But we will do what we need to do to keep our people safe and to get through this," she insisted. "We suffered through debris slides and wildfires in the past two years and our economy survived them. We intend to bounce back from this crisis too."

Hollywood producer Doug Shaffer's new film is ready for pre-production, but work on it had to be postponed due to the order. Shaffer, however, isn't against the new measures.

"The closures are a good thing and totally necessary," he told Xinhua. "We're up against an invisible enemy and need to be proactive in stopping the virus."

"This could go on until June or longer. But business will come back in due time," he predicted.

Kinsley Carnahan, owner of a third-generation real estate business in Los Angeles, also told Xinhua that she supports the aggressive moves to contain the virus.

"This is a global effort now if we want to stop the pandemic from spreading rapidly and contain it," said Carnahan. "Yes, it will hurt small businesses like mine, but in the end we will come out strong. And health is number one."

WORRY AND COMFORT

Chuck Hamil, an insurance investigator and ex-policeman in Chino, a city 55 km east of downtown Los Angeles, told Xinhua that "as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in California, I see there is real cause for concern."

He felt unsettled when a nurse at the Keck Hospital of the University of Southern California informed him that a staff member there tested positive for the virus, prompting concern for his own daughter's health, who is a nursing student at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena city.

Hamil's employer, The Harford, a Fortune 500 insurance company, has ordered 95 percent of its workforce to work from home and has canceled all investigative fieldwork.

Tina Stromsted, a psychotherapist with a private practice in San Francisco, told Xinhua about some negative responses that the crisis is generating.

"Cross-sections of the population are responding differently," said Stromsted. "Individuals can have their own 'go-to' defenses or ways of trying to shut down feelings and cope."

But she said many people had expressed relief, saying that, "At least local governments are responding in an informed, wise, and responsible way -- unlike the White House, which has been disseminating confusing, misleading, inept, politically-motivated misinformation and sound bites."

Barney Cohen, producer of the long-running TV series "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and "Forever Knight," told Xinhua that he was following the governor's orders.

"I'm hunkered down at home with my wife, watching movies and TV ... I'm also enjoying playing Scrabble with my wife again. Hadn't done that in years," Cohen said.

With touching candor, he added, "This is a good time to be with someone you love."

(by Julia Pierrepont III)