Fresno County Administrative Officer Jean Rousseau went over important steps Thursday the county is taking to get as much open as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Libraries

Rousseau says this coming Monday, libraries will have a soft opening. No one will be allowed inside the libraries, but curbside pickup and other limited services will be available. This will be for at least the foreseeable future until Gov. Gavin Newsom relaxes his guidelines for a complete reopening.

PPE Purchases

The county is working with the city of Fresno to purchase personal protective equipment for the senior nursing facilities throughout the region.

“We will be doing that initiative in order to drive down the costs and make it much more reasonable, and then distribute them to those facilities as needed,” said Rousseau.

County Appeal to Newsom

Rousseau expressed frustration when discussing Newsom’s phase 2 restrictions — specifically two benchmarks he believes are “unattainable.”

Newsom’s office wants to see about seven positive COVID-19 cases per day in a county the size of Fresno. The current daily average is about 30 to 40 cases.

The governor also wants to see 14 consecutive days with no coronavirus deaths.

“We’re trying to, to try and work with the state as best we can.  But there certainly is a lot of frustration not only Fresno County but a lot of counties in those two requirements,” said Rousseau. “Our argument is that the state order by the governor has worked. It’s protected hospitals, it’s allowed the hospitals time to build up their PPE inventory.”

The county will send its appeal for a variance to Newsom on Friday.