10.14.20 Orange Tier Press Conference

The County of Santa Clara
October 13, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
1:00pm PT

David Campos: Good afternoon everyone my name is David Campos I'm the Lead Public Information Officer for the County of Santa Clara's Emergency Operations Center today we are having a press availability with some key County Leaders to discuss the announcement that was made by the State of California that allows the County of Santa Clara to move into the Orange Tier as you know we have been working in the last few days to prepare for this development and have put out a lot of information to our residents and businesses in preparation for this move so with that we're going to first hear from the County Council for the County of Santa Clara James Williams who is going to explain more about what this means and then we will hear from our Public Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody so Mr. Williams


James R. Williams​: Good afternoon everyone as David just mentioned a little while ago the State announced that Santa Clara County is now eligible to move into the Orange Tier under the State's Four-tier Framework we were expecting that that would occur and in fact last week issued a Modified Risk Reduction Order that's the Local County Order that overlays on top of the State's requirements that modified order will now go into effect tomorrow Wednesday October 14th and that means that beginning tomorrow there are a number of other categories of activity that can resume here in Santa Clara County in anticipation of this we also have issued a number of revised directives these are the industry specific guidelines that provide a safety framework for operating in a manner that is safer with respect to COVID 19. significantly there are two key areas where our local order will continue to have a different requirement in place than what is otherwise generally allowed under the State framework in the Orange Tier and these are two areas that present greater risk of COVID-19 transmission one is indoor dining and for indoor dining we have updated the dining guidance that is already available online it was actually put up a few days ago but it will now go into effect tomorrow and the other category is indoor gatherings these are both areas of greater risk and in these two areas in Santa Clara County the numerical limits will actually be a bit stricter than what is otherwise allowed in the Orange Tier elsewhere for those Counties that have met the orange tier criteria so specifically what that means is in Santa Clara County for indoor dining there will be capacity limit of 25% for indoor gatherings a capacity limit of 25% and for both a total cap of no more than 100 people and it's really important limitation that we've put in place to help try to reduce the density to help try to reduce risk for the community and we will be out there with our Enforcement Teams ensuring that there's compliance with that local requirement and with the local directives so again a little different than what you'll see on the State website because as has always been the case wherever there's a difference between a State and Local Order the stricter controls and so in these categories indoor dining and indoor gatherings and gatherings includes for example movie theaters that limit 25 percent of capacity by no more than a hundred people now for outdoor gatherings the the full State number in the Orange Tier of of other important changes for businesses within within the next 14 days every business needs to submit an updated social distancing protocol this is has been for many months now one of our bedrock baseline requirements it's the check mark that you've all come to expect now when you see or enter any business or facility and we have an updated protocol these protocols are available on our website they're searchable but an updated protocol to reflect the latest State Framework and the revised Local Order so it's really important that all businesses do fill that out and submit that and continue to adhere to the the uh local requirements and the State requirements to help keep us safe now I just want to say you know moving to the Orange Tier is is significant especially given how large a County we are and it's going to be up to us collectively in how we adhere to the safety protocols the face covering requirements social distancing the implementation of these protocols following the capacity rules these are all essential steps in order for us to stay in the Orange Tier and if we fall back in meeting the case count criteria and having testing that we have available in our community and the positivity rate that we have if we fall back for just a couple weeks the State will move us backwards into the Red Tier and so as a community we have made tremendous progress but it's been slow and hard-fought progress and so we want to really make sure that folks are aware that we need to continue to be very vigilant and thorough in adhering to these baseline safety standards and protocols and with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Sara Cody our Health Officer


Dr. Sara Cody : Thank you good afternoon everyone and uh thank you so much James I'm going to tell you a little bit about where we are in terms of the numbers to put our county in context both where we are in this pandemic and where we are as compared to other Counties in in our State um so I think today is really great news for everyone who lives and works in this County and all the collective work that everyone has done to move us into the Orange Tier the orange tier also called the Moderate Risk Tier and I think just to to elaborate on what James said this is this was hard fought so remember that we went from the transmission levels that we're seeing today sort of average daily case counts that we're seeing now that's where we were in mid-June and in less than a month our daily case counts tripled and since the middle of July so that's almost three months ago we have slowly slowly slowly drifted down to where we are today to meeting the metrics for the Orange Tier but it took a long time and a lot of work so they uh here are the metrics that that enabled us to be eligible to do these openings in the Orange Tier we have a average daily case count of 3.7 cases per 100 000 population the metric says that you need to be below four we meet that case count because it's adjusted for testing we do a lot of testing here in Santa Clara County so our adjusted case rate enables us to meet that metric the overall positivity rate the the the proportion of people tested who test positive for COVID across the county is 1.7 percent but the State introduced a new metric today the health equity metric which says that the lowest quartile the most disadvantaged quarter of the population also needs to meet that test positivity metric so that means that our most disadvantaged quartile needs to have a positivity rate below 5 and in our County our most disadvantaged quartile test positivity is 3.8 so we meet that health equity metric also really good news and a really a testament to the work that's been done in community with community to help prevent the spread of COVID I also just want to put the work that's been done in our County in context we are the largest County in the entire State to move into the Orange Tier so the first large County to move into the Orange Tier in the State and I think what that says is that we have been working extraordinarily hard in our County for a long time we were a bit stricter for a bit longer than many other jurisdictions I would say for in particular for the large jurisdictions in Southern California and now that is paying off we are able to cautiously move into the Orange Tier I would just I would just say that overall what we have done here in the County is to always keep the health of the public front and center and to make gradual tests of change to ensure that everyone is as safe as can be as we go along even knowing that there's no way that we can prevent every single case of COVID but we can prevent a lot of hospitalization and a lot of death if we go slowly and carefully and that's what we've done so even though we're certainly by no means out of the woods and in fact all around us and many communities in the Country of course we see COVID increasing we think that with everyone's help we can continue to prevent severe illness and death from COVID even as we enable more businesses and activities to resume that's going to take everyone doing a couple really simple things one is always wearing a face covering as we're doing indoors two whatever activity and event you can do outdoors it's always safer than indoors because you have natural ventilation three more distance is better so the fact that we're all spaced out here and wearing face coverings increases the prevention and keeps us all safer so in closing I think we're now switching from a strategy where we're controlling the environment by keeping a lot closed to shifting the responsibility to each of us as individuals to do everything that we can to follow those core principles of wearing a mask staying in well ventilated places and keeping a distance if we all do those things I think that we'll be able to hold our transmission steady or hopefully even continue to allow it to to drift down but as always it's going to take all of us working together and it's going to take all of us remaining vigilant even though we're tired of being vigilant we need to remain vigilant to keep everyone safe and to keep making the progress that we've made thank you so much


DC: Thank you Dr. Cody and thank you Mr. Williams before we take questions we want to note that we are broadcasting uh live on Facebook and that at the end of the question and answer period we will be available to speak to monolingual speakers in Spanish and Chinese if the media would like to to ask questions in those languages so with that we'll open it up to questions yes Sir question for County Council how are you going to get the compliance with restaurants and how you're going to prepare for example with all the restaurants especially Mexican Restaurants against another ones because you've been eating Mexican Restaurants very hard and you haven't checked others that are doing they are not doing the protocols so to be checking this how you're gonna do it how are you gonna handle that so we're gonna turn this over to County Council the question is with compliance how are they going to implement compliance and there is a claim that Mexican Restaurants have been hit hard but I would actually dispute that and note that we have actually gone after not compliance with respect to everyone in the same way and in fact we have a very expansive Outreach Program that goes door-to-door including to Spanish-speaking businesses but I'll turn it over to County Council


JW: Yeah sure that's exactly right we're doing a lot of work with our with the restaurant industry we have specific guidance out there it's actually a sector that the County normally regulates through the Department of Environmental Health those general health and safety inspections that you have for food safety on a day-to-day basis year after year that's a County function so it's actually one of those areas of County Jurisdiction even normally and we've done a tremendous amount of outreach and there's a whole outreach effort that's completely separate from any of the enforcement work we do receive complaints those are followed up on and a really important thing that I want to emphasize with our enforcement efforts is we have baked into the ordinance a process where people not only get warnings and they get noticed and they get assistance but they also almost always have a grace period to correct any violations before they have to pay a fine it's only in those very rare instances and it has been relatively rare where it then moves on to actual imposition of a fine but we are out there unfortunately the largest sector that has had complaints has been the dining sector and we're very concerned to be honest about what might happen with opening indoor dining we know it's a very high risk environment Dr. Cody has been pretty clear about actually discouraging higher risk individuals in particular but even folks more generally should really think hard about indoor dining because it's an activity where you're inherently indoors without your face covering on for an extended period of time and so we are very concerned so we are going to be looking at those capacity limits we are going to be looking at the adherence to the specific requirements of table spacing and the other criteria that are put in place to really try to make it safer but I don't think anyone should be mistaken outdoors is definitely safer than indoors and indoor dining is definitely one of the higher risk activities that is now going to be opening up in our County starting tomorrow


Questioner: So can you just clarify regarding enforcement who exactly is enforcing like for example that a restaurant is adhering to the 25% capacity and can they possibly face fines and what would the amounts potentially be


JW: Absolutely so we have a Enforcement Team that's part of our EOC operation it involves our Department of Environmental Health which as I mentioned has general responsibility for health and safety compliance at restaurants anyway and they work very closely then with my office the County Council's Office to follow up and pursue and issue any notices of violation to specific facilities where we've got a problem that hasn't been corrected the fines or sliding scale depends on what the violations are how many and they can add up that but an individual fine can be as much as for a given violation five thousand dollars per violation per day um but you know again the goal of the program I just want to be very clear and we've had you know in this community we've had great great great compliance and when we've had issues they've almost always been addressed with that education and outreach or that warning now there are exceptions but they're the exceptions so you know I don't want people to misunderstand that um but it is there and in partly it's there as a matter of fairness right you know businesses that are opening and following the rules and following the protocols and being diligent about it it's not fair to them if somebody next door is not following those protocols we understand and recognize that they're significant it's really vital for health and safety and it's also vital for as a matter of fairness


Quationiar: And can you just clarify since we're on the same topic uh you mentioned that restaurants need to submit an updated social distancing protocol can they still start operating tomorrow and then submit it or do they have to submit it and get confirmation before they can start operating at 25%


JW: So two things first of all it's actually all businesses need to submit an updated protocol not just restaurants it's literally all businesses that are open in the County and they have 14 days from tomorrow to do so so they can go ahead if they have a current protocol in place that continues to be valid for the next 14 days to allow them to submit an updated one but you cannot be open in this County without a protocol so you either have to have one already from the prior order or you need to submit a new one if you don't have one at all you cannot be open but you do have that 14 day period to do a revised one


DC: yes Sir

Questioner: Hi good afternoon Ellie Alden from San Jose Mercury News thank you guys both for being here and answering some questions uh this to ask is the sub-industry of collegiate athletics we have two schools Stanford and San Jose State as you're well aware that are practicing out of County because of restrictions going into the Orange Tier what do they need to do can they start practicing tomorrow under the campus?


DC: So this is on collegiate athletics we're going to turn it to our County Council Mr. Williams


JW: So that's a great question we actually do have a directive specifically related to collegiate athletics that is now up and posted it provides the criterion requirements it will go into effect also tomorrow as we move into the orange tier and with as the New Risk Reduction Order goes into effect and it provides protocols around uh you know keeping small cohorts around face coverings around testing and the other kinds of protections that will help reduce risk although again kind of like indoor dining people need to be aware that having direct physical contact with other folks and that includes you know other teams that are going to potentially come into the community right that is higher risk and so this helps put some safeguards in place but it doesn't eliminate that risk there is still risk it just reduces it um and you know we have seen across the Country a lot of outbreaks at college campuses and so it's something that will really need to be carefully adhered to by our colleges here in the County that's our expectation and we've also made very clear in the directive that the authorization to proceed is contingent on careful thorough complete adherence to those protocols because it is high risk


Questioner: Sorry to follow Jeff does that mean tomorrow they can't just show up on campus and start practicing there's still needs there's still some hoops they need to get through before they can return

JW: They need to be implementing those requirements so if they can do that tomorrow they can move forward there's testing requirements there's cohorting requirements um and so forth um and those have been up you know for a few days now and there have been a number of conversations with um the colleges in our community so you know if they're ready to do that then they can proceed they don't need a specific approval


DC: We have a question over here


Questioner: yeah a question for Dr. Cody I wonder if you can comment on some of the high profile cases that have been in the news lately with President Trump uh claiming that he's been cured and the drugs and the therapies that he's been receiving you know look to be successful are is that what doctors are seeing here in Santa Clara County is and secondly is there kind of a less severe COVID-19 that's circulating now as opposed to what was going on in February or march


Dr. Cody: I can't speak to what's happening in other jurisdictions but I can speak to what's happening here in our county and what I've seen here in our County is at the beginning of the pandemic we had a number of hospitalizations and a number of deaths it now in this last that was sort of our first wave and on our second wave which peaked in mid-July uh we had um as a percentage a lower percentage of hospitalizations and deaths but it's almost impossible to tease it apart and to understand our local data because we were not doing much testing because the tests weren't available during our spring spike in contrast starting in June we've been doing a lot of testing really widespread testing so it's it's difficult to compare our experience with the first wave and the second wave but any time that anyone is sick enough to require hospitalization and that was preventable we really do need to double down and do everything that we can to prevent it and certainly any time that we can prevent someone from dying of COVID where it's a preventable death we we do need to do everything that we can to do that


Questioner: Dr. Cody do you personally feel comfortable dining indoors and for those who choose to do so any additional advice

Dr. Cody: I think it's really important to remember that any indoor activity where you have to remove a face covering is going to increase your risk and so anyone who is in a higher risk group or who is in a household with someone in a higher risk group we strongly discourage higher risk activities like indoor dining

Questioner: but for you personally do you feel comfortable


Dr. Cody: In my household I have people in higher risk groups and so in someone for my situation it is strongly discouraged because it's higher risk


DC: we're going to take questions from anyone else who hasn't asked a question okay if not we'll go back to this gentleman


Questioner: Two questions one is what is going to play the music and Mexican Restaurants because Mexican Restaurants still don't know why having a stereo having a DJ is affecting COVID that's one the other one is patio I had a patio on a restaurant on 13th Street where the party was closed because it has two walls they have to have three openings that's what they said but also in the same restaurant when the Inspector was there there were two Mexican guys with a guitar that wanted to play on a table from the street far away six seven feet away and they expect to say no you cannot play music at all music is not allowed Mexican Restaurant and this is cultural we have to have music when you are inside a restaurant or outside yeah so what does gonna play now


Dr. Cody: So I can I can start to answer your question then I invite our our County Council to chime in I sort of want to explain the why um when people are indoors with their face coverings off in order to be able to eat and drink we want to still try to create an environment that reduces the risk and any time there is background music that's louder where people have to talk over the music that increases the likelihood that an infectious person would create aerosols or droplets that could harm somebody else so we want to keep it fairly quiet we also want to really encourage whenever possible to have people move their dining experience outside where we know that there's more ventilation right so if you had a lot of excitement and loud music inside that would draw people inside to speak in louder voices and that would be uh riskier for for everyone there James do you have anything to add


JW: Yeah I would I would add that we've actually brought more of that distinction to bear and the revised guidance between outdoors and indoors and so more of an allowance for some of these activities outdoors than in the indoor setting for precisely some of the reasons Dr. Cody has mentioned um and also note that a little while ago about a week or so ago a week and a half ago the um we clarified the definition of outdoors to try to address some of these more complicated patio situations where there were different walls and other configurations to try to provide better clarity around that but can't speak to a very specific case


DC: We'll take a couple more questions yes Sir


Questioner: James um could you outline uh very specifically what sort of gatherings will be allowed under the churches it's facing the common types of things that people would want to do at an indoor gathering parties are they allowed


JW: Sure so under our under the State's rules under the State's rules indoor gatherings are allowed for only first amendment type of activities or for business operations so basically under the State's rules that allows churches synagogues other religious institutions under the State's rules that allows protests and those kinds of activities indoors and outdoors but under the State's rules that would allow wedding ceremonies but not receptions not birthday parties not social type gatherings under the County framework which of course is subject to that State limitation what will now be allowed to happen up to the 100 person limit or 25 of capacity whichever is lower churches will be allowed to happen indoors you know church services um um you know the movie theaters as you mentioned um and all of the other types of gatherings allowed under the State the only difference locally is that number being a hundred persons but otherwise the types follow just what's allowed under the State now I do want to note the state over the weekend did put out some revised gathering guidance for social gatherings I think that was picked up by by a lot of folks that allows outdoor gatherings of no more than three households uh only outdoors not indoors outdoor gatherings of up to three households for social purposes you know so that could be um you know to get together with friends family neighbors outdoors and they've got some specific safety criteria that's also allowed under the county's outdoor gathering rules and but people need to that that limit of three households it comes from the State

DC: So take one more question yes


Questioner: Thank you again I guess Jeff there's probably a question for you following up what I've already asked about collegiate football how how will you monitor now the State guidelines specifically say they have to have a liaison each school who is in charge of monitoring that so are you relying on that state directive and then you you the County will work with that person to ensure that they're they are adhering to your directive


JW: So the question is how will we be monitoring compliance with the collegiate athletics requirements um yes so the first answer is yes they have to comply with the State directives and so the State guidance that requires them to designate somebody that applies um in addition you know we have our complaint portal which is applicable for compliance across the board that's everything from our testing order to issues that people may see in businesses in the community but also anything that might be happening with an on-campus program and we have received concerns for example about different sorts of things including on college campuses so that's another place where we can receive complaints and we will then follow up on them and then where resources allow we do do proactive outreach and we do proactive monitoring to the extent that we can and we try to focus those in higher risk settings and as I mentioned before things like indoor dining things like collegiate athletics are among the higher risk activities so they'll be an area of greater attention but you know if people see I think a message for the public if you see something that doesn't look right if you see something that is not in alignment with these important safety protocols that are in place to keep all of us as a community safe we encourage folks to report those concerns through the complaint portal let us know so that we can follow up so that we can let people know you know this is what the requirement is so we can do the outreach so we can help make things safer for all of us


DC: Thank you very much and just for the record it's James Williams who is the County Council and then Sara Cody the Public Health Officer thank you very much and we're now available to members of the media who would like to do an interview in Spanish or Chinese thank you