Here's a Los Angeles Times story out of Del Norte County, California, population 28,610, about political and public health consequences of the coronavirus crisis. The lede of Susanne Rust's story follows:
In Del Norte County, which lies along California’s northern coast, officials are straddling a tenuous line: On the one side, they are desperate to keep their residents free of a deadly virus raging across the globe; on the other, they can’t ignore their community’s libertarian tendencies and traditions.
“For people living here, we kind of naturally social distance already,” said the county’s sheriff, Erik Apperson, who noted that many of the county’s residents lived here precisely because they wanted to avoid the crowds and traffic found elsewhere in the state.
“But, if we start pushing too far onto people’s civil rights and personal liberties — their ability to move freely, or get out onto the ocean to fish — well, what are we doing here?” he said, referring to his office’s role in defending and enforcing the U.S. Constitution.
Crescent City, the county seat, is roughly 20 miles south of the Oregon border. It’s wedged between the Pacific Ocean and an expansive range of steep, densely forested mountains. Poor and remote, it is known for having experienced 41 tsunamis since 1933, and somehow coming back after each one.
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