With a recall looming in the distance, California Gov. Gavin Newsom committed to opening schools safely, tackling COVID-19 and provided a plan for a brighter California during his State of the State speech at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
The livestream started with a plethora of virtual speakers before Newsom spoke, including COVID-19 nurse Keena Mapanao singing the National Anthem outside of Sharp Grossmont Hospital in San Diego.
The beginning of Newsom’s address focused on the serious effect that COVID-19 has had on the state. “Too many! Too many forever goodbyes over facetime,” Newsom said. “54,395 Californians who will never be forgotten by their families and friends.”
Newsom defended his decision to share the state’s stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE) with other states in deeper need earlier last year. “We quickly built our own pipeline, we sent ventilators and our doctors to New York and other states that needed them,” he said. Newsom then exclaimed, “Now finally, vaccines are here! Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines will save your life, allowing you to see your parents again or go to your daughters basketball game.”
Newsom then touched on the reopening of schools in the state. “Remote learning has exacerbated the gaps that we’ve all been working so hard to close,” the governor said. “Our kids are missing too many rights of passage, field trips and proms and graduations…the loneliness of missing their friends, frustrated emotions they don’t yet understand.”
The Governor went on to say that over 7,000 schools are opening back up to in-person learning, supplied with three months worth of PPE provided by the state, which has also enabled schools to provide rapid COVID-19 testing. Starting last week, 10% of the vaccines in California are now allocated for teachers and school staff. Newsom stated that over 210,000 doses have already been administered. He also announced $6.6 billion in school funding for learning loss, mental health and longer school days.
Newsom then addressed a problem that many in Sonoma County face yearly, wildfires.
“In 2020 we simultaneously faced two ‘once in a generation’ crises,” Newsom said. “We combated the worst wildfire season in our state’s history in the middle of the pandemic.”
Newsom cited climate change as the reason, “The hots are getting hotter and the dries are getting drier,” he said. Newsom then thanked CAL FIRE and the National Guard who landed helicopters into flames to save people.
Newsom wrapped up his address on a brighter note. He thanked the scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena who helped put perseverance on Mars then paraphrased Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of Newsom’s home city, San Francisco. “Now is the time to tell the world about our brighter future, and only if necessary we will use words,” he said.
