11.06.2020 FB Live Briefing.More testing

The County of Santa Clara
November 6, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
10:00 AM

[Music]

Larry Little: hi everybody thank you for joining us i'm Larry Little we begin this morning with a focus on testing here in Santa Clara County i'm joined this morning by chrissy chong the testing branch director here at the eoc's testing operations and she will discuss this morning the safety at our testing locations where and why you should be tested but first we want to let you know that safety is a priority for us here at the eoc but we have removed our face covering so everyone including our American Sign Language interpreters can clearly and properly communicate the information that we will be sharing this morning. Chrissy, thank you for being here.

Chrissy Cheung: thank you for having me.

LL: i know it's been a busy time these last seven, eight months.

CC: yes

LL: so we just want to talk about testing a little bit uh. who should be getting tested?

CC: so you know we have really done a lot of work in the last several months to expand our testing capacity so you know there are several groups of people that should be getting tested one if you're symptomatic you need to get tested. if you are a close contact to a case, then you also should be getting tested. also if you are our frontline or a central worker, you should also be tested regularly as well.

LL: so there are been a lot of misconceptions about the testing centers a lot of people feel well there are going to be a lot of people at the testing center so there's a possibility i could be exposed when i go to the testing center and that's just absolutely not true so just talk about the safety at the testing centers.

CC: right so we definitely have been hearing that a lot from community members and you know i do want to ensure everybody that that is absolutely a myth. we take great care in ensuring safety for all of the residents and people who come to our testing centers to get tested. so you know we make sure that there's enough space at our testing centers uh so that people can be physically distanced, at least six feet apart especially when they're waiting in line, when they're waiting to get tested when they're filling out any type of paperwork. also everybody needs to be masked, when they come to our test sites, and also for our test sites the ones where you walk into a test site.  you have to park get out your car and go into the test site we only test asymptomatic people there, so if you are sick, we actually have to turn people away from those sites. we do have options for people who are sick, who do have symptoms, or feeling ill. our fairgrounds site, we have it's predominantly a drive-through site, so because it's a drive-through and you're kind of enclosed in your car, it makes it safe for people who are going to these test sites, if you're symptomatic to get tested there.

LL: and i did use the drive-through testing center before and the operation there is a magnificent it's and everybody's doing a great job and you're going to be safe when you go to these testing centers. you know i had arranged for uh graffiti ... confetti, not graffiti

CC: i was waiting which one of our testing sites will there be graffiti at.

LL: okay that's another situation, but i had a range for confetti to fall from the ceiling, but you know management didn't approve it. but we have uh conducted over a one million tests here in santa clara county right talk about that that's very exciting!

CC: yeah that's actually very exciting. and and i think just in light thinking back to early in the pandemic, early this year it was just so hard to get a test right so you know over the last several months we really have been building capacity whether it's you know capacity in our labs VMC has been a great partner for us our public health lab has been building capacity um you know and that's something that we really have been able to do in partnership with a lot of uh county partners a lot of people who are external um to our county as well so you know i think for our county sites between our fairgrounds site which now can test uh 2,500 people a day, and you know eventually it can test up to 3,000 4 000 people a day which is very exciting for us you know we have pop-up sites where we have testing where you can just drop in, no appointment, it's we have sites in east san jose and in gilroy we also are partnering with our cities so in the cities, where we don't have a pop-up site we are partnering with them, to have a test site regularly with each of those locations. and you know we also are working continually to build capacity to work with the state. the state also offers resources to us to expand testing, and we really want to be able to have accessible free, fast, easy testing for everybody who lives, works, or goes to school in our county so one million is absolutely a tremendous accomplishment and there's just a lot of people that we have to thank for that. LL: yeah we've done over uh one million tests, but i wanna i want to admit that probably about 20 of those million, have been for me. so it's amazing CC: being safe yeah you are one of our frontline workers.

LL: i really appreciate that uh we have we've made testing so accessible here in the county to to all community members uh. so why should people be getting tested? i know uh everyone's looking at election results right now, and our attention has been taken away from it a little bit not as much talk about COVID so talk about why it's important to be getting tested and and and why should people be getting tested on a regular basis.

CC: right. so testing is actually a really essential tool for us in public health so being able to test will help us identify people who are infected, ensure people who are infected, who are sick will receive appropriate care it helps tremendously in contact tracing and case investigation you know we want to ensure people who are sick are able to protect those who are around them their family members household members and other close contacts and it really is one of the tools that we can use to help contain and prevent the spread of COVID-19. you know one of the the things the important things about getting tested regularly, especially for our frontline workers. and frontline workers are are you know people who uh work and interact regularly regularly uh with the public right so that includes people who work in our grocery stores, people who work um in our restaurants, right people who do delivery, are educators who are in schools and you know first responders, so everybody who has regular interaction it's important for our frontline workers to get tested regularly so you know what we do recommend is to get tested at least once a month, and no more than every two weeks, right unless you are in a very high risk uh situation high-risk exposure situation or you work with vulnerable populations you know we do recommend that people get tested regularly because you are regularly exposed to people who you know may be sick and because we have you know uh we also have asymptomatic transmission going on um it's just safe it's to protect yourself, it's to protect your family members, it's to protect your co-workers also protect the people that you come into contact with

LL: earlier this week we did a show on gatherings and you know with it being people celebrating moving toward the holidays and also with politics as well, people may uh gather more so in the coming days uh what is your advice to people who gather as far as when it comes to getting tested?

CC: right so you know i think that there are um there's plenty of guidelines for us, and the county has put out guidelines for safe gatherings right. so you know make sure that there is enough um space for social distancing, make sure that you're wearing your mask, outdoors is always safer than indoors, but you know if you have attended one of these large gatherings, and you think that you may have been exposed, or to a close contact with somebody who tested positive for kovid you know the first thing that you should do is um to keep your family safe is to quarantine as best as you can and that really is to prevent exposing others if you have in fact been exposed so you know what we do recommend is after a large gathering quarantine yourself to make sure that you're safe and then of seven days about seven days after potential exposure then you should be able to get tested.

LL: thanks so much so let's talk about the there was an order mandating that healthcare facilities provide testing to community members here could you just discuss that order to share a little bit of details about that order with us so people know that you don't have to use one of our testing centers you can actually go to your provider and be tested?

CC: right, absolutely so the testing order that came a couple of months ago in in september it really is to help encourage our health care facilities to increase their testing. so based on the testing order, there are the healthcare facilities are required to test people that are kind of under their care population, so if you are symptomatic, if you are a close contact to a case, if public health has referred you and requested that you go get tested, and also if you are a frontline or essential worker, then healthcare facilities under the testing order are required to test you.

LL: and what if someone is turned away from one of those locations.

CC: right so if people are turned away from those locations, um you know we have um our online portal um scccovidconcerns.org um and you know that is one way to let us know uh that you know you were turned away from a healthcare facility and you were unable to get tested and you know that will help us also reach out to our partners to reach out to our health care systems to to see what's going on to see how we can kind of encourage a partnership that we are able to get everybody in our county access to testing.

LL: and you can always go to sec freetest.org for information about testing here in the county and it's a good idea too if you're going to use one of the county locations to take your insurance card uh with you just so they can get the information and uh it comes out separately i don't want to get into that but you're not charged for it but it helps because a lot of people they need a test immediately they need it done immediately they don't want to set up an uh an appointment which could take some time well thank you so much do you have any closing information to share with us?

CC: um you know what i i just want to remind people that we do have a lot of resources for testing in our county so you are able to get tested um you know i've also heard people that are afraid to get tested because they don't want that swab that goes all the way up to the you know back um all of our county test sites are using the nasal swab, so it's a fast easy test, so you know we really encourage if you are a frontline worker, if you have regular interactions with the public please get tested regularly you know and as always we have to continue to wear our mask our use social distancing um and you know that those are really the tools that we have in public health to protect ourselves and to prevent the spread of COVID.

LL: yeah and testing is really is simple it's easy and it's very comfortable because if it were not comfortable i don't think i would want to do it

CC: it's comfortable

LL: yes very comfortable. very gentle uh process no pain at all all right thank you so much for being here of course we will have you back we want to remind everybody you it's very important for you to be tested because we have to slow the spread and that starts with knowing uh your status as well as following some of the protocols that have been set forth by the county and reducing the spread. i was looking at an article today here from KCRA and what we don't want to do is this article is about Shasta and Palomas County moving back into a more restrictive tier, and we definitely do not want to do that we want to continue to advance and eventually move to the yellow tier here in santa clara county. all right well that's going to do it for this edition of live with the county of santa clara our edition in spanish comes up at 11 o'clock as well on Thursdays at 10 a.m in Vietnamese. thanks for watching everyone. have a good weekend!