California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently said California remains concerned about reopening theme parks within the state — and he didn’t make much of Disneyland, either.
What’s happening?
Newsom said Wednesday that opening theme parks remains a major concern for the state, since being close to so many people could spread the coronavirus, Deadline reports.
- “Self-evidently, we should be concerned about opening up large theme park which, by definition, people mix from all possible walks of life and putting ourselves and others at risk of seeing transmission rates rise.”
Newsom was asked about Disneyland and the recent outrage over the governor’s decision to not allow the park to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But Newsom did not acknowledge the park by name.
- “You bring up one theme park. California has dozens and dozens of theme parks,” he said. “You bring up one particular operator of a theme park that does things very very differently than other operators. You have theme parks that are really cities, that operate hotels and restaurant facilities, not just organize around carousels and other amenities. You see others that are out on beaches and boardwalks that a very very different.”
No Disneyland reopening in sight:
- California officials released new guidelines on Oct. 20 for how theme parks in California can reopen, which I wrote about for Deseret News. The theme parks can only reopen in the least-restrictive, fourth level, yellow tier counties in the state, KABC reports.
Disneyland is located in Anaheim, California, which is in Orange County. Dr. Clayton Chau, the director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, said in a statement to the Deseret News that reaching the level that will allow the park to reopen seems almost impossible.
- “I think for a large county like us, especially a county with institution of higher education where folks (are) coming in from outside the county and outside the state, I think it’s going to be very hard to achieve the yellow tier,” he said.
- “It depends on when the vaccine will come as well as how many doses (are) available for our populations as well as how many of our residents will readily accept the vaccine — those are the three factors that will determine how soon we can get to the yellow tier.”