04.17.20 Face Covering PSA

The County of Santa Clara
April 17, 2020
County of Santa Clara PSA


Hi, I'm Sara Cody, I'm the Public Health Officer for the County of Santa Clara and today I have an important message.

We are issuing, we really be doubling our effort in issuing a critical recommendation that the public cover their face with a face covering  whenever we're out to perform essential business. So, we urge everyone in our community, except for young children, to cover their face whenever they're out and about.  For example, to go to the grocery store, go to the hardware store, or go to the doctor's office.

We are in alignment with our colleagues around the Bay Area and elsewhere. We now understand that this is one very important prevention tool in preventing the spread of COVID-19.  Some new information has emerged that makes this recommendation particularly urgent.  And that is increasingly we understand that much of the spread of COVID-19 is happening undetected. So, we know that a lot of transmission has happened and we’ve not detected the cases in part because we haven't had the testing capacity to detect cases but now we also understand that a lot of people with the infection who may be infectious to others don't have symptoms. And we also understand that people who do develop
symptoms are infectious for two days before those symptoms develop.

So, what that means is we've got a lot of spread happening unnoticed. So, we urge the public, we really urge everyone that to wear a face covering so not a medical grade mask we still need to conserve those for frontline health care workers but a face covering even and particularly those that can be made at home do reduce the chance that a person who is infectious will spread it to those near them.

So, if everyone is wearing a face covering we can reduce the probability that COVID is spread in our community. So it's a really really really important thing to do.  And our desire around the Bay Area
and here in Santa Clara County is that this is a like a new practice.

So, if you're going out and about and you don’t have your face covered, it should feel weird. It shouldn't feel right. And when you go to the grocery store or waiting in line outside the grocery store you need to have your face covered and I hope that when you look around you see that everyone else has their face covered too.

Now there's a couple exceptions at times when you don't need to wear a face covering. That would be if you're traveling alone in your car or if you're traveling with an immediate household member you don't need to come your face. If you're a child, particularly a young child you don't need to wear a face covering and if you're out performing strenuous exercise you're out for a bike ride or a run don't wear a face covering it could make it difficult to breathe but we do recommend that you carry one so that when you stop exercising and you're out public that you can put it on.

So again, the Bay Area region we're aligned, we're unanimous. We urgently believe and recommend that
face coverings are really important to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Each community is going to enact that a little bit differently. Here in our county it's not a Health Office order. In other words, it's not something that I can ask my colleagues and law enforcement to enforce.  However, it is a critical and urgent recommendation to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It's just one more really important tool that we have to prevent the spread. Thank you