Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti doesn’t want people to be too optimistic about the life cycle of the coronavirus outbreak.
President Trump floated Easter, April 12, as a possible end to coronavirus shutdowns in some parts of the country meant to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus, but have placed an extra burden on businesses and the U.S. economy. Garcetti told the people of Los Angeles not to get their hopes up yet.
“I think this is at least two months,” he told Business Insider. “And be prepared for longer.”
Garcetti, who threatened to cut power and water to businesses that breach shelter-in-place guidelines, warned that “premature optimism” about the end of the coronavirus outbreak could do more damage than good. He said data projections for his city are not in a place where people should feel they are on the brink of normalcy.
“I can’t say that strongly enough,” the mayor said. “Giving people false hope will crush their spirits and will kill more people.”
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He added, “This will not kill most of us. It will kill a lot more people than we’re used to dying around us.”
Garcetti explained that the isolation efforts are designed to prevent the overburdening of hospitals and mass deaths that could overwhelm the city.
“The main horrifying thing that I think is keeping every local leader awake is the projection of how many people will get this, the projection of what the mortality rate will be, and how many dead we will have,” Garcetti said.
“Will we have hundreds of thousands of deaths, or tens of thousands of deaths? That’s what keeps us up. It will be our friends. It will be our family. It will be people who we love dearly. And everything I do is through that lens,” he added.
California has the fourth-largest infected population with more than 2,500 cases and 53 related deaths.
