L.A. City Coronavirus Update: Mayor Eric Garcetti Announces Working Group To Help Reopen Film and TV

On Friday, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the launch of a series of working groups across key industries, including film and TV.

The mayor said each of these groups has already been working for weeks, and their aim is to offer “guidance from experts on how we [reopen] safely.”

The working groups are “assembling a tool kit with key health and economic metrics to monitor our progress and advice on how to gradually expand services,” said Garcetti. These tools kits will be “guided by our public health professionals here in Los Angeles.”

Among the working groups’ goals will be de determine how to “protect customers and staff and operate under limited capacity…to establish frameworks for how businesses can stay safe, be economically and financially resilient during this crisis, how they can boost their liquidity, boost demand, protect their supplies and strengthen their operations while protecting their people.”

Other of these working groups will address manufacturing, retail, higher education and cultural institutions. Garcetti said these bodies have already been working for two weeks, and groups for industries like hotels, sports and live venues will convene soon.

Garcetti stressed the importance of uniting “business and labor leaders who know their business inside and out” to guide reopening.

When asked whether a certain industry can reopen, the mayor says he looks for two things:

1. The aforementioned guidance from experts on reopening safely and

2. Residents’ behavior, how we adhere to that guidance.

“When we get both of those right,” said the mayor, “the answer moves closer to ‘Yes, it can open.'”