12.7.20 Press Event ICU English.Spanish.Vietnamese

The County of Santa Clara
December 7, 2020
Press Event: Updates on COVID-19 Vaccine Plan and ICU Capacity

Betty Duong: To share our progress made to date on the County's COVID-19 vaccination plans and our ongoing efforts to uphold transparency. You will hear from Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, providing the latest updates. You will also hear from Dr. Ahmad Kamal today, the County's Director of Healthcare Preparedness to provide the latest updates on our on our ICU capacity. After both doctors have presented we will go into a question and answer time, and then after that our pio representatives will provide statements in Spanish and Vietnamese. Thank you.

Dr. Marty Fenstersheib: Thank you. Good afternoon. um I wanted to let everyone know that the county has been working diligently to prepare for receiving the first allocation of vaccine and that we are expecting that to arrive around December 15th, to that end, we've been preparing logistically, for this for the Pfizer vaccine, which most likely will be the first vaccine that's approved. None of the vaccines have been approved yet, and that will occur after the vaccine manufacturers meet on December 10th and get an approval from the FDA, that's the Pfizer vaccine. We expect the second vaccine, the Moderna vaccine, to meet with the FDA on December 17th and get an approval. When that happens, then the vaccines will be shipped to the various states and localities. The State of California has told us that they will be receiving around 327,000 doses of vaccine from the Pfizer manufacturer, in the first allocation. This is a very small amount, and we expected this, so there will be subsequent allocations that come but we are going to be receiving in this county, about 17,500 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and we look to see that most likely coming on around December 15, a day before, a day later. We, we expected around that, that time. The first doses of vaccine will have been prioritized already by the federal committee called the ACIP, that's the immunization practices advisory committee, and that's part of the CDC, and they have already prioritized that the earliest vaccines, those early vaccines that we will be getting in small numbers are going to be prioritized for the acute care health workers in hospitals, for the most part, and also the second priority is for residents of long-term care facilities. We certainly will not get enough vaccine for both of those large groups, but this is the first allocation, and we expect subsequent allocations over the next several weeks. The hospitals are preparing and have prepared to receive this vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine as you know requires very low storage, and special freezers, and so the hospitals are preparing for that, and the county also, the health department has purchased those freezers, so we will also be prepared. The hospitals will be vaccinating their own health care providers within their facility, and the county is going to focus on vaccinating staff at the long-term care resident facilities, mostly the skilled nursing facilities, those are very high risk facilities. Just for instance they have about five percent of all of our coveted cases but represent over 45 percent of the deaths from covid, so again a very high risk area. Subsequently, to this prioritization, the ACIP this, that federal agency will give us additional priorities, which will be followed by the state and by the by us, as we get more vaccine, and again, over time, we will most likely see the Moderna vaccine and some additional vaccines over the course of a few months. Eventually, we will expand the vaccine for priorities to other members of our community, again, as we are being directed, uh that will come over the over the next several weeks to several months, and so this, uh the vaccination program will take quite some time, probably uh well into the next spring and summer to complete. We want to remind everybody though as we start to give vaccinations, that does not mean that we should not be as diligent and vigilant about our prevention measures, so even as we start giving vaccines, we want to make sure people remain vigilant, put, keep their mask on, keep all of the social distancing guidances that we have said. So more updates, as we receive them, but that's where we are at this point. Thank you.

Dr. Ahmad Kamal: Good afternoon. Yesterday our county set a new record, with 1450 new patients diagnosed with covid. To put that into perspective, this is double the record, we set just last week. We are clearly seeing increased levels of transmission in our community, and we know from historic data that about 10 percent of individuals diagnosed with COVID will need hospitalization.

Yesterday we had 62 new individuals hospitalized, and we expect that this number will be above 100 in the very near future. With that, we are very concerned about our healthcare systems capacity, in particular when it comes to ICU beds. As of today, we have 50 empty ICU beds remaining in our county, that's 50 beds for a county of 2 million people, to care not just for covid, but to care for everyone who needs critical care in a hospital. Many of our hospitals can continue to have five or fewer vacant ICU beds. The hospitals are doing their part, they are working very hard to balance the load among themselves, they are cancelling elective surgeries, they are finding nurses in their systems and deploying them to the most critically ill patients. The county is also looking at all options including sites where people may be able to get care, looking with our regional county partners at how we may be able to expand options for treatment, but we cannot do this alone. We need to all redouble our efforts right now to help prevent the spread of covid. We need to wash our hands, we need to distance, we need to wear masks, this is the only way that we're going to get through this. Last spring our community showed that we are able to flatten the curve. Now is the time where we all must come together and remember that spirit we had and get at it again. As Dr. Marty said, a vaccine is coming, and it does provide hope, but it's not going to be immediate, and we need to get through this time together. Thank you very much.

BD: Thank you, Dr. Fenstersheib. Thank you, Dr. Kamal. We now will move into our q and a portion of the press conference. Are there any questions?

BD: Yes.

Media question: (to low to hear question)

BD: A number of questions there, so the question is, "Will the county be deviating from the vaccine distribution recommendations made at the State level? and is it ultimately is that a decision that counties are empowered to make?" so we'll turn to Dr. Marty Fenstersheib to answer that question.

Dr. Fenstersheib: Thank you for that? um We are going to be following the directives and the requirements from the Federal and the State vaccine experts, and most of those will come subsequently with meetings of that ACIP committee and directions from the State. We know that the vaccine again is not going to be coming in the large numbers that we will need it, and so we expect the state to give us some additional tools to do some of the sub-prioritization that we will need, including making sure that we meet all of the equity requirements so that the people that are most impacted by this disease will have an opportunity to receive vaccine. That's all going to come. We're following a strict guidance from them, and hopefully everything will roll out smoothly over time.

BD: Thank you, doctor. Any other questions?

BD: okay so um this concludes the English language portion of our presentation today. TT ensure that this message is received by as many of our residents as possible, we will now have a public, a pio representative provide the state today statement in Spanish, followed by a pio representative to provide today's statement in Vietnamese, and they will both be available for further comment, and statements for our one-on-one interviews afterwards. Thank you.

Rodrigo Garcia-Reyes: Buenas tardes. Rodrigo Garcia, oficial de información pública. El condado de Santa Clara anticipa asignación inicial de 17.500 dosis de la vacuna  Pfizer COVID-19, que se distribuirá de acuerdo con las pautas estatales y federales al personal atención médica y a los residentes y a personal de atención de largo plazo. La primera fase del enfoque refleja su ministro limitado inicial de la vacuna. Las 17.500 dosis son suficientes para dar las dos inyecciones necesarias a 8775 personas en un intervalo de 21 días. A medida que se disponga de más ministro de la vacuna Pfizer y otros fabricantes, se puede seleccionar poblaciones adicionales para la vacunación incluyendo personal de primero facidios, trabajadores esenciales, personas con afecciones de alto riesgo y adultos mayores. La primera dosis de la vacuna está en revista para este mes. Los funcionarios de salud del condado enfatizaron que todos deben mantener un estricto cumplimento de todas las medidas de prevencion vigentes que se han identificado antes del calendario estatal porque las tasas de casos, las hospitalizaciones y las de las tasas de positividad de las pruebas están aumentando y la curva es más pronunciable que nunca.

En question de la situación de los hospitales, el condado sigue muy preocupado por mantener la capacidad de los hospitales, ya que los records se rompen con regularidad. Hasta hoy ha habido 1450 nuevos casos en el condado de Santa Clara,
511 muertes confirmadas en total, 72 nuevas hospitalizaciones y la capacidad en la unidad de cuidados intensivos está al 15%. El Doctor Ahmad, Director de preparación para la atención médica del condado de Santa Clara, menciona que los hospitalizaciones siguen en aumento y la capacidad de aumento podría tener que usarse, pero la adopción de personal podría ser problemática. La mejor alternativa en este momento es prevenir las hospitalizaciones en primer lugar, siguiendo todo los protocolos para prevenir la propagación de COVID-19. Muchas gracias.

Vietnamese media statement: For captions please view separate video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9L9TB9h6KdQ.