The Beverly Hills city council voted Wednesday to resume elective and cosmetic surgeries, allowing plastic surgeons to immediately reopen their clinics to celebrities and the rich as California continues to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, The New York Post reports.
The decision by the Council repealed the freeze on the surgeries – after moratorium on surgeries was made March 16 to curb the spread of coronavirus in the city, and after Governor Gavin Newsom closed ALL of California’s beaches.
Councilmember John Mirisch, who was the lone vote against the repeal, said perhaps people could wait for their Botox treatment.
“I was absolutely supportive of angioplasty, tumor removal, heart valve replacement, those sort of medically necessary procedures,” Mirisch told Fox 11.
“What I do have a problem with is allowing purely elective cosmetic surgery so rhinoplasty, breast augmentation, Botox, that sort of thing.”
“I don’t think people need face jobs especially when you’re supposed to be covering your face,” remarked Mirisch.
He mentioned that Beverly Hills is “not going well” with the infectious virus and is the fourth most infected ity in LA County.
“It’s bad policy and it’s irresponsible. The motion was made to just basically rescind the protections we’ve taken more than a month ago and open up those floodgates. Not only does it send the wrong message, it’s just the wrong thing to do at this time I think,” said Mirisch.
“We didn’t take any specific measures to ensure that surgery centers and medical buildings that will be seeing increased traffic now have higher standards of hygiene, or cleaning or other safety measures,” the councilman said.
However, Dr. Arash Moradzadeh told Fox 11, “Essential life-saving surgeries are the key and most important factors and we are going to focus a lot of our attention on that.”
“People need these procedures because it helps them feel better and feeling better is very important right now when we’re taking such a psychological impact of being stuck at home or losing our jobs,” said Moradzadeh.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to resume surgeries earlier in the week, but said plastic surgeries were prohibited.