06.26.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
June 26, 2020
Live Stream - Live with the County of Santa Clara
10am PT

Larry Little: Hi everybody, thank you for joining us. I'm Larry Little, Public Information Officer here at the County's Emergency Operations Center.

Today, we're going to spend some time answering some of your questions that have been sent to us via Facebook, through our FAQ website, and through email as well. My colleague, Todd, will be joining me in just a moment to answer— assist in answering some of those questions.

But first, we want to let you know that safety is a priority for us here at the Emergency Operations Center. But for this segment, we have removed our facial coverings so that everyone, including our American Sign Language interpreters, can clearly understand the information that we will be sharing today.

I want to dive right into the data dashboard here and give you an update. You can see as of yesterday, we have total cases 3888 confirmed cases in the County. Certainly, our condolences go out to the families who have lost loved ones due to COVID-19 and we wish everyone who is suffering from COVID-19 a speedy recovery.

You can see here also that the new cases number is at 64. That's down from some previous days, but a little bit higher than normal. But we will come back to that in just a moment.

But right now, I want to go ahead and bring Todd in and we want to jump right into answering some of your questions that you have sent to us.

Thanks for being here, Todd.

Todd Naffziger: Thanks for having me.

LL: Always a pleasure. You have all the answers today.

TN: Don't put it out there like that. [Laughs]

LL: All right, so the first question that is coming to us is: My barber has completed a COVID-19 certification course, thus, does this mean they can now provide services to me here in the County?

TN: That's a good question. We've recently been getting some emails about this as well in our inbox for the FAQs. Unfortunately, this doesn't directly allow them to reopen their business. We are encouraging our community and our business owners to really educate themselves and this may be a good tool to do so. Just not sure as to what the accreditation behind that kind of certification is at this time. But definitely as a business owner who's waiting to reopen, educate yourself on everything you possibly can to prepare yourself really.

LL: All right next question says: I work in an office building with cubicles. Are we allowed to return to work using COVID-19 protocols and guidelines.

TN: That depends, really. There's a lot of businesses that are open right now—a lot—and especially those that have an office setting, they really must follow the social distancing protocol. Especially those essential businesses and non-essential businesses. That's our key guidance in making sure that we prevent the spread of COVID-19.

However, our Order still stipulates that businesses should continue to maximize the number of staff that are working from home. So just because you can doesn't necessarily mean you should. So really make sure you're utilizing the amount of staff necessary to encourage your business to flourish properly.

LL: Another question, it says: Is my business liable if someone is proven to have been infected with COVID-19 at my establishment? Mainly customers.

TN: Unfortunately, we're not lawyers when we're answering these questions. We really are directing our community to talk to those people who are more familiar with the law that can really determine what is what is not considered liability. We're really more there to guide you through the Order and the resources and language that are there on our website to help you better understand what the intent is behind what we're trying to do.

LL: Someone says here: My fitness studio is ready to open. We have implemented all COVID-19 guidelines and protocol. Can we open now without you giving a green light?

TN: Unfortunately, no. We're still waiting for those type of facilities to be able to operate. What we are doing is encouraging those businesses that are waiting to kind of prepare your facility the best way you can with the information that is currently out there. There is some guidance from the state, there is our social distancing protocol. So really prepare yourself around that guidance in anticipation for the day where we have our individual guidance ready for you, so the transition is a little bit easier. But at this time, just because some businesses are ready to open, they're not ready to open until we give them the green light.

LL: Mm-hmm. One person here on Facebook is saying: We are educated and prepared. Is there a date for reopening salons, barbershops, and gyms?

TN: Unfortunately, no there isn't a solid date scheduled yet. There are a lot of changes. We've been making great strides with our testing and our contact tracing. Again, it kind of goes back to my previous statement. Just do everything you can to prepare yourself as businesses will open in the future. Unfortunately, at this time, we don't have a hard date set in stone.

LL: You know that's one thing I saw in this county and the counties that surround us. A lot of businesses were giving—given the okay to open, but they did not open because they were not ready. So this is a perfect time to start preparing for reopening.

Our next question says: Are outdoor fitness classes allowed? If not, why?

TN: So at this time, no. A lot of those outdoor gatherings that, you know, forced people to congregate are still not allowed. But what people can do is we have allowed for them to interact for outdoor activities with one other household at a time.

So we are encouraging people to still kind of interact with other people. Be prepared to do hikes, run, bike, go for a brisk walk, but at this time, those group related activities are not allowed.

LL: So you couldn't even do a yoga session outside?

TN: Unfortunately, based on the language we have currently in our guidance, no. You would be, however, allowed to do yoga with one other household in an approved manner at what the guidance we provide on our website right now.

LL: All right. This one says: Is fencing allowed?

TN: That's a very tricky question. [Laughs] It can be, in accordance with the guidance that we have on the website. Two people from separate households, I don't believe would be allowed to do that, because you are getting within close proximity of each other and you have a common item that is getting in contact with somebody else. If it's two people from the same household, then absolutely. You'd be allowed to conduct that activity outside.

LL: And I was surprised because we've gotten that question a few times.

TN: Had a number of those questions, yes.

LL: So a lot of fencing going on here in the County. This question says: The malls are open but my fitness club is not. What is the difference? There are lots of people at the mall. Can you explain this?

TN: Absolutely. The malls have their own social distancing protocols in place and if you think about it, malls are a very big place with a lot of open air. Yes, there are some gyms that provide that same open air, but gyms have a lot of high-touch surfaces with the weights, with the equipment. Also, people do a lot of sweating and a lot of heavy breathing. So there's a lot of potential there for people to be able to spread COVID-19.

The gyms are—the owners are very much so from us very scientific community and I know they're very confident in their ability to mitigate that, which again, we're really strongly encouraging to get prepared and get ready just in case, you know, that service is allowed to be able to be utilized again.

LL: Mm-hmm. A lot of people didn't like the fencing question. I guess they're not into that. Question here says: Can we get an update on when indoor dining may happen?

TN: Again, we don't have a lot of dates set in stone moving forward for what services aren't allowed and how those will be transitioned into being allowed. The best advice I can give our community right now is continue to monitor our social media, continue to monitor our website as we post there first.

We want to make sure people are ready and willing and able to get going and hit the ground running the minute we allow those services to resume. Especially with what the possible guidance will be presenting them moving forward in the future.

LL: All right this one says: Why is the County encouraging testing? I do not feel sick.

TN: That's a very good question. Testing is a very, very good tool that we have and we can encourage our community to utilize. It helps protect you, and helps protects your family, it help protects the community, it helps protect the people you care about. It provides very critical information to our Health Officer to know where people are being infected and how we can go forward with mitigating that so that it affects the services that we can allow to reopen moving forward in the future. So please get tested, especially if you suspect that you've become—been in contact with somebody who has had COVID-19.

LL: And for the people who joined us a little bit late, again, the salon question.

TN: Oh man. Yes.

LL: Yes. Betty [Duong]'s working on it. Yes, she's definitely working on, and then hopefully we will have some information soon. Todd, thank you so much for being here.

TN: Thanks for having me.

LL: If we have more time, I'll bring you back,

TN: Absolutely.

LL: But right now, I'm going to jump right back into this data dashboard. As you can see, that the new cases were up to 64 and if you look here, we've seen an uptick with the age group of 21 to 30 and our highest group is the age group of 41 to Every one 60 all the way up to 100 doing a pretty good job on this.

Also, we're seeing an uptick with our Latinx community, now at 46.1%, and a lot of people say: Why do you make such a focus on ethnicity? Because it helps us point to our areas of opportunity so we can stop the spread of the virus for everyone. The Latinx community 46.1% but they only make up 25.8% of the total population here in the County.

Good news here, well we saw drops within the African American community as well as the Asian community. But, we're seeing upticks in the virus all over the country here.

If you would just look here this headline says: Texas is heading down a dangerous path, local leaders warned as coronavirus cases and hospitalization surged. That's one of the states that opened a little bit early, now they're seeing an uptick.

You will go here it says: California sees 69% COVID rise in two days as LA County has most cases in the U.S. Again, LA County opened a lot of businesses before we did here in Santa Clara County, so they are seeing an uptick in cases.

I want to go to the Public Health website and Luis is going to pull up that information. The California Public Health website, and if you look at the information here all the way down here I think we're one-two-three-four we're about eight or nine. Santa Clara County out of all of the counties in California, we're about eighth or ninth.

The reason I want to point that out is if you look at San Diego County, San Diego County has probably about a million people more than we have at this County, but they have three times the cases. Then you have some of the counties that are smaller than we are, and they have more cases. And I know it's been very difficult, but that points back to we've had restrictions in place and this has helped to keep our numbers low.

Now, the governor of California said the other day—and let me find it here because I don't want to misquote him—the governor of California, Governor Newsom said, "Many of us understand—understandably had developed a little cabin fever. Others have just frankly taken down their guard." The governor went on to say referring to people attending private events, family gatherings, children playdates, birthday parties, and graduation parties, "...People are mixing and that is increasing the spread of the virus." So what one person does matters.

Take a look at this video clip of how you can break the chain and slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community.

[Video plays]

Link to full video transcript available here: https://pastebin.com/5nYwX7bb

[Video ends]

LL: All the more reason to shelter in place, wear face coverings, and practice social distancing. You see there, one person can make a difference in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

If you have any questions for us, always go to our website. Here, you can go to our Ask a Question or Share a Concern. If you're looking for a question, it's probably already been asked. That team has answered more than 10,000 questions here at the EOC. And you can go to Frequently Asked Questions and find out that information Also, if you're looking for testing information, it's right here, and information about calling today at the SAP Center.

We hope you have a great weekend. Thanks for watching. Everyone stay safe out there. Thank you for sheltering in place and again, we will get through this together.

Have a good weekend.