At the April 22 Cupertino City Council meeting, the Cupertino Council took decisive action to protect the residents of Cupertino when they passed (by a vote of 4 – 1) an ordinance requiring residents to wear face masks. It’s a shame our fine city has not taken such action. All we had were a few Saturdays when various members of Council and some commissioners and children handed out masks. (The first time, they ignored County and CDC health directives on maintaining social distancing as well). That was a hollow gesture at best. And the numbers show the results of this inaction. Was the reason for this because Mayor Gillmor was waiting for the highly paid PR firm, Singer Associates, to tell her it would be a good thing do to and then of course, issue a hefty bill for that advice?
Look at the numbers from the Santa Clara County Public Health Department Covid-19 numbers. The City of Cupertino, has a population of 60,214 which is a bit less than 1/2 the size of Santa Clara. Cupertino has a Cumulative Case Count of 79 and a rate per 100,000 of 130. One would expect a city with a bit more than 2 times the population to have similar numbers. But you would be sadly mistaken. The City of Santa Clara has a population of 126,209, a Cumulative Case Count of 521 (5.9 times that of Cupertino) and a rate per 100,000 of 130 (3.18 times that of Cupertino).
Why can’t Santa Clara have a Mayor and City Manager that care about its residents? There are independent voices on the council. Perhaps in November, we can put more independent voices on the council and have a Council that cares about its residents.
Santa Clara
Population 126,209
Cumulative case count: 521. / 502
Rate per 100,000: 413 / 398
Cupertino
Population 60,614
Cumulative case count: 79
Rate per 100,000: 130
Data from: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard-cases-by-zip-code-and-city.aspx