Newsom shirks blame for closing churches, keeping Hollywood open during COVID: ‘We didn’t know’

California Governor Gavin Newsom defended his order to keep churches closed during the pandemic while allowing some Hollywood production to continue, saying authorities “didn’t know” the potential risk at the time of the decision. Newsom said in an interview that his order was “a course correction in real-time as we know more and more.” He further stated that his administration “didn’t know” how to best address the risk posed by the virus when the stay-at-home order was issued in March. Newsom argued that decisions regarding the pandemic must be based on data and science, and that officials were still learning about the virus. He also noted that precautions taken early on allowed California to move forward and reopen businesses despite initial predictions of exponential growth in coronavirus cases.