SAN DIEGO — Governor Gavin Newsom estimates some 25 million Californians could get infected with COVOD-19 in a worst-case scenario.
Some public health experts are questioning that estimate based on numbers from other countries.
Newsom’s order relies on data that estimates 56 percent of Californians could be infected with COVID-19 over the next 8 weeks.
“In California, we've been working with those numbers as a nation state with 40 million strong. We've been organized around an attack rate, as we refer to it, of about 56 percent. The virus will impact about 56 percent of us. You do the math in the state of California and that's a particularly large number,” Newsom said during his announcement of the stay-at-home order.
The governor also is predicting a shortage of some 10,000 hospital beds statewide.
But not everybody agrees with the governor's math.
“My assessment, based on the epidemiology in the other countries, is we'll be able to handle the capacity,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor in infectious disease and public health medicine at UCLA.
“Our current approach of using a sledgehammer and this national shutdown is not very wise. It's not a sound epidemiological approach to controlling infectious diseases,” Klausner said.
He points out that in Italy – one of the countries hardest hit by the virus – there only are about 47,000 confirmed cases with a population of 60 million people.
“This is not influenza. Influenza is readily spread. It can be airborne; 20 to 30 to 40 percent of people across countries will get infected. We haven't seen that in China, in Japan, in South Korea. Even in Italy, cases are concentrated in the north. So, there are other factors that are containing these epidemics that have nothing to do with our control measures,” he said.
Statistics aside, Governor Newsom said his stay-at-home order will have the practical result of fewer Californians becoming infected with the coronavirus.
“The numbers we put out today assume that we're just along for the ride. We're not. We want to manipulate those numbers down. That's what this order is all about,” Newsom said.
News 8 reached out to the governor's office for clarification of the COVID-19 prediction numbers. We did not hear back.