El Cajon Mayor Wells says Newsom’s regional stay-at-home order is about politics

EL CAJON (KUSI) – Again citing rising coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths over the past month, Gov. Gavin Newsom Thursday announced plans for a “regional stay-at-home order” that will be implemented in areas running low on intensive-care unit beds.

The order is triggered when ICU bed availability in a select region falls below 15%. Although no region met that criteria as of Thursday, Newsom said the Southern California region could meet it in a matter of days.

San Diego County’s ICU capacity is well under Newsom’s criteria, only 30% of ICU beds are COVID patients, and another 47.3% of non COVID-patients.

El Cajon Mayor Bill wells recently told the El Cajon Police Department to de-prioritize calls about COVID violations, going against the wishes of San Diego County Health Officials. Wells said their officers simply don’t have time to spend on these types of issues.

After Governor Newsom announced most of California will go into another lockdown in the coming days, Mayor Wells is once again voicing his opposition to these orders.

Mayor Wells said another lockdown will be “devastating” for his city, and will only cause other problems like alcoholism and overdoses to get worse. Wells said “you have to wonder that these numbers are being manipulated so that they get the outcome they want to get. Which I think is to shut us down. That seems to be beyond reason, but it seems to be what is happening.”

“The decisions don’t really seem to be based on any real data,” Wells continued. Adding that he has received overwhelming support for his stance against the lockdowns.

Wells detailed his opposition to another lockdown on KUSI’s Good Evening San Diego.