Written by Nicholas Vetrisek
Last week, San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher held a press conference where he told business leaders that it was more important to stop the coronavirus than to reopen the county. This sounds fine when you are a government official with a guaranteed paycheck, but for those who have to work for a living, the reality is much different.
Fletcher specifically criticized the work of Supervisors Jim Desmond and Kristin Gaspar, due to their working with business leaders to reopen the county. While he is focused on a virus that kills almost no one given the population of San Diego County (800 deaths out of 3.3 million people), Desmond and Gaspar are attempting to ensure that the local economy isn’t completely annihilated endless lockdowns.
“I have never supported any approach to re-opening that was not specifically supported by our Public Health Officer and clinical leadership team. Supervisor Fletcher knows this but prefers to continue spreading this false narrative because he is actively running a campaign against me,” Supervisor Gaspar said. “I will continue to do my job protecting public health and working with small businesses and leave the politics to Supervisor Fletcher.”
As a result of this dichotomy between Fletcher’s ivory tower mentality and the reality faced by San Diegans, he failed miserably in attempting to display empathy by saying, “I know that you simply want to run the business that you built your life putting together. I know you want to feed your families and you want to support your workers, but what is being sold to you as a solution will not help your situation. It will only make it worse.” Business owners on KUSI’s Facebook livestream didn’t believe him. In fact, many called his bluff by encouraging him to take a pay cut—something he obviously won’t do.
The simple fact is that a virus that has infected 50,000 people and killed 800 in a county with over three million people can’t reasonably be held over the heads of business owners to force them into bankruptcy. The lockdown must end, with or without Supervisor Fletcher’s blessing.
