Newsom shirks blame for closing churches, keeping Hollywood open during COVID: ‘We didn’t know’
California Governor Gavin Newsom has rejected the idea that his administration was to blame for keeping movie studios open and closing down churches during the coronavirus pandemic.
At a press conference last week, Newsom said that when the pandemic hit the state last year, the state didn’t know enough about the virus to make “rational decisions” at the time.
“I just want to reiterate something: We didn’t know. You didn’t know. We didn’t know,” Newsom said.
He also noted that the decisions “were not made in a cavalier fashion” but instead based on the limited science that had been gathered at the time.
“We had good intentions,” Newsom said. “We started with a shutdown. We implemented sector-by-sector modifications. We made adjustments based on the information we had.”
He further defended his decisions by pointing out that the state allowed places of worship to resume indoor services under certain modified conditions.
“We are allowing churches, places of worship, to open up with modifications,” Newsom said. “We’ve looked at our data to pull back stronger that all of us are doing to make sure we’re being effective in this fight, and that we are continuing to always make these health-based decisions.”