Gov. Newsom to Release Report on What the State Did Right and Wrong During COVID-19 Pandemic

Governor Gavin Newsom announced earlier this week that a new report on his administration’s response to the COVID-19 will be out within the next month.

According to Newsom’s office, the report itself has been in development for the last few years, with both the California Health and Human Services Agency and independent experts helping put together the 1,000 page document. While there had been some hints of such a work progressing in the past few years, it was confirmed for the first time only last week when Newsom was being interviewed in the Sean Ryan Show podcast.

As the Globe previously reported, Newsom was on the show defending his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent 3-year lockdown of the state. While Newsom mostly danced around questions over what he did during COVID, he was candid over some matters, including decisions in the early days when not much information about COVID-19 was known.

“What are some of the things during Covid that maybe were a mistake?” Ryan asked the governor. Newsom said, “we were worried it was airborne, and about people being outside. And we realized then, after the fact, ‘what the hell were we doing shutting down the beaches, and open areas?’”

However, when Ryan asked him a question posted by fellow podcaster Joe Rogan over Newsom’s decision to require school children to get the vaccine, the Governor revealed that a report on their response was close to completion.

“None of us have really reviewed in an objective way,” said Newsom of the state response. “It’s all through the lens of politics, what we did right and what we did wrong. With humility and grace, I’ve asked them to have that report done. It’s the only report that I know of that’s putting out a truly objective review of what went right and what went wrong. The report will be out next month.”

A new report on California’s COVID response

This led to more details about the upcoming report this week. The report is set to compare California’s response to both the federal response and what California did compared to other states. It will cover all aspects, including lockdowns, school responses, business responses, masking requirements, vaccine requirements, stay-at-home orders, and other areas.

In addition, Newsom revealed that not only were there international experts contributing to the report, but also interviews with those who disagreed with him on his policies.

Despite the extensiveness promised by Newsom, he nor his office commented on how the report would deal with the Governor himself. The list of unknowns includes the effect of his 3 year long COVID-19 official State of Emergency, his multiple instances of breaking his own COVID policies (French Laundry incident, Mexican travels, maskgate), the continual rescheduling of state re-opening plans, his record 58 COVID related Executive Orders made within 9 months in 2020, the $31 billion EDD unemployment fraud scandal, the $1 billion BYD Chinese mask scandal, his multiple failed homeless COVID housing plans, and more.

The upcoming report also gained the ire of many for it’s timing. Many lawmakers claimed the report would help crush future criticism during a possible presidential run, by nipping COVID related problems and scandals in the bud now through a state-sponsored report. Others pointed out that the report may not go on about lingering effects of the lockdown, like business closures and education rates, which are still affecting California today.

“Obviously, the governor is doing everything he can to position himself to run for President and he probably knows this is something that’s going to come under a great deal of scrutiny,” explained Congressman Kevin Kiley (R-CA). “We have seen very negative repercussions that linger to this day when it comes to our students falling behind in school, when it comes to small businesses that have closed, permanently, that were really community treasures, that aren’t there anymore. When it comes to the mental health and development of our young people. And at the end of the day, you’ve got to ask the question, what good did it do?”.

The report is to be released sometime in August.