House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed support for Los Angeles’s extension of stay-at-home orders for three more months and downplayed it as “inconvenient.”
“Well, of course, I agree with the decisions of the people on the ground in their particular venue and location,” the California Democrat said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe when asked about the news that Los Angeles would remain closed for three more months. “Because again, as Dr. Fauci said earlier, and I wish the president would listen to him, or hear him even, that you just cannot pretend it went away and go out there. So, yes, it’s inconvenient, but it’s even more inconvenient if you’re going to be infected, or worse. Or if you’re going to go out to work and bring something home to your family. I think that’s the biggest fear that all of us have is. What does it mean to the children and family members.”
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Tuesday during a Board of Supervisors meeting that stay-at-home orders will “with all certainty” be extended for the next three months.
“We are being guided by science and data that will safely move us forward along the road to recovery in a measured way — one that allows us to ensure that effective distancing and infection control measures are in place,” Ferrer said.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti backed up Ferrer’s comments during an interview Wednesday morning and went even further, suggesting that Los Angeles will not completely reopen until a “cure” for the coronavirus is found.
“There’s no so-called open state or open country that doesn’t continue to have health orders telling us to cover our faces, physically distance, and to tell people that you’re safest working from and staying at home,” Garcetti said. “That’s all that the county health director was saying, and we can’t expect that to disappear in a matter of weeks or even a few months.”
The mayor added: “We’re not moving beyond COVID-19; we’re learning to live with it,” Garcetti said. “It’s important not to overreact, but it’s important to take this serious because it is as dangerous today as it was the first day that it arrived in our cities and in our country.”
Pelosi and her fellow Democrats have been facing criticism this week for inserting partisan projects into their latest coronavirus relief package.
The bill, which President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell effectively said was dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate, includes $50 million in “environmental justice” grants, $40 million for “bio surveillance of wildlife,” $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service, an automatic review to determine whether or not illegal immigrants currently detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be released, and coronavirus relief funds for illegal immigrants.
Pelosi has defended the spending in the bill, saying that she “can’t be bothered what others say” about it.
