Mayor Eric Garcetti: L.A. Won’t Completely Open Until We Have Coronavirus ‘Cure’

Appearing Wednesday on ABC’s Good Morning America, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) said his city won’t fully reopen until there is a cure for the Chinese coronavirus.

Garcetti’s remarks come after Los Angeles county’s top public health official predicted its stay-at-home order will remain in place for an additional three months.

A partial transcript is as follows: 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you have a sense of where you are going to be in September? We did see that news this morning that California State University System is saying they’re not going to have classes on campus. What are you expecting in Los Angeles and for your schools?

ERIC GARCETTI: Sure. I hope for our K-12 schools that we will have some sense of opening, but it won’t be in the way that we’ve known school in the past. It might be fewer days a week, it might be staggered, because we have to maintain that physical distance and we have to make sure for our vulnerable children, some of them won’t be able to go back to school for some time. Look, we have to tell the hard truths and protect our people. At the same time, we take steps forward. For instance, this past weekend, we opened up our trails, we have retail for curbside pickup, we’ll see that expanded, even some active recreation on our beaches this weekend. Those are important. We’ve never been fully closed, we’ll never be completely open until we have a cure. But I do believe that we can take steps, but monitor those numbers, listen to the scientists and the medical professionals, and make the tough calls even when there’s criticism.