07.27.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
July 27, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
10:00am PT

Larry Little: hi everybody and thank you for joining  us i'm larry little public communication specialist here at the county'semergency operations center we begin this morning with the focus on the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the county as you may know last week california became the state with the most coronavirus cases in the country. Santa Clara County contributing nearly 2000 cases in just the past 15 days let's go ahead and take a look at our data dashboard here as you can see. As of yesterday a cumulative of 9041 cases 218 of those are new and 184 deaths certainly our thoughts are with the loved ones of every of everyone who's lost loved ones due to COVID-19.

We want to take a deeper dive into the demographics here you can see we are seeing a surge with the age groups uh for 20 to 29 that's the largest move we've seen also with 19 and under and we see that the largest number of transmissions happen or presume community transmissions. We want to note here that the death rate begins at age 30 but it's important because anyone can get contract the virus or be asymptomatic and pass along to someone who is older and they pass away from the virus of course we don't tell you all of this information to drive fear into you or to close businesses because no one gains from that but you have to look at this from a risk management standpoint. And you can see here as we look at our hospitalizations rate i want to go back to the first slide we showed you here And we go back here and as i was talking about is we have to look at this from a risk management standpoint we have 526 beds total available in the county hospital beds of those 121 or ICU beds available 405 non-icu bets available and the reason we talk about that we are in a county of nearly 2 million people and that's not a lot of beds so we really have to watch the rate of infection. Here's the information from California COVID act now and it shows that the state of California is at risk of an outbreak COVID-19 cases are either increasing at a rate likely to overwhelm hospitals or the state's COVID preparedness is below international standards and you can see here that ICU rooms at hospitals are at 45 capacity and again in a state of over 40 million people we don't have the ICU capacity to handle very serious coronavirus cases that's why we have such a focus on slowing the spread here in the county and around the state.

All right we are back here and i am joined now by Marianna Moles she is public communications officer here at the county's emergency operations center as well as lead for our social media messaging. You know i want to bring up this information here there was a of course our county is on the state's watch list which places more restrictions on us as you may know but someone put a comment last week and they said i'm moving my business to uh santa cruz county and a lot of people have said i'm going to santa cruz county to do business well you can see now santa cruz county has just been added to the state's watch list so they're going to be making changes to a lot of businesses that have been open. There's no escaping this virus no matter where you go Marianna so we have to take precaution and do uh follow the guidelines for our masks wash our hands and everything like this so what i want to start off i want to put you on the spot just a little bit and i apologize so and i we definitely don't want to be preaching to the choir as my grandma used to say we want to thank all of the residents who have done everything possible to help slow the spread of COVID-19. but i want to ask you if everyone is wearing a mask if everyone is practicing social distancing or physical distancing as well as washing their hands frequently throughout the day why are we seeing a surge in the county with COVID-19 cases.

Marianna Moles: Well everybody's not doing thosethings that's the fact of the matter. uh we do hear i just had a friend this weekend message me and say you know is there a place for me to report my neighbors who had a party and i said hey just curious what age group was that and he said they're probably in their 20s i said okay that you know that's what we're saying we're seeing more cases of people in their 20s hospitalization rates in that age group are increasing significantly across the country so people have this idea there's loopholes with this virus go get tested you test negative that's permission to party it's not, there's no loopholes with this virus. it's brand new we're still learning about it  we just don't know enough about this virus.

LL: I I want to stand up uh for the people that are 29 and under for just a moment because um i know it's so easy to say oh the young people are causing it they're not listening they're not doing it but you know they're not the cause two weeks ago in my neighborhood the 29 and under were having a party well this past weekend the 50 and older were having a party so everyone everybody we have to do our part i want to say, ask you what should people be doing and what information should they be sharing with friends and family?

MM: I you know i think on social media we're trying to reach a lot of different  people and we're trying to meet people where they're at we know that everybody knows what they should be doing which is wearing a face covering maintaining your space maintaining you know staying in place not touching your face washing your hands frequently but if people can talk to their friends and family about what it means to them when they go out and take a risk we all have to be comfortable with our own level of risk but the thing with this virus is is if you take a risk you could also be putting other people at risk who are not comfortable with that risk. So i think talking to our friends and family and expressing how we feel about what they're doing is helpful but you know we need to think about this in different ways and there's different analogies we can use. You know with the face mask for instance it should be as much a habit as wearing a seat belt when you get into the car seat belt is about safety one difference with wearing the face mask is that it protects other people it could save someone else's life if you're wearing it.

LL: And by the way prior to this broadcast we did remove our face mask so everyone including our american sign  language interpreters could clearly uh understand the information that we would be sharing this morning so let's talk about face coverings and masks. why is it important to wear it? So since the beginning of this back in January when we were talking about viruses spreading one thing that is stay consistent is that the virus spreads through droplets and we know this uh just from other viruses we know that's how they spread that has stayed consistent this entire time. The face covering face mask cloth mask whatever you want to call it it acts as a shield between your droplets and anybody else who's  around you any surfaces that are around you it significantly decreases those droplets um reaching anybody else and that combined with the distance is  really the magic piece that people need to keep in mind just because you're  wearing a face covering does not mean it's 100 percent all the time fool proof you still have to have that distance in there because just us talking people laughing those can spread droplets this isn't just about sneezing and coughing  anymore we are seeing that just people simply talking to each other can spread this virus it's far more contagious than we originally thought perhaps and we will continue to learn more and more about this virus. so are we going to demonstrate.

LL: So yeah so i was out and about this weekend running some errands and you know i was happy to see people actually they had their mask  but some of them were not wearing it properly so you're going to just demonstrate the different things that we have seen and the proper way to wear a mask.

MM: It is a little amusing to see all the different ways that people are choosing to wear their face covering. Uh  so just you know around social media we see the analogy of uh how people wear their underwear and so that is really quite a good analogy because you wear your underwear to protect yourself it's it's a barrier there and so when people are wearing their face covering like this this is ike the equivalent of wearing your underwear and everything's  hanging out that's not doing anybody any good we don't want to see that. This right here under the chin again no this and then this this these two things here that's like the equivalent of wearing your underwear around your ankles or something. that's that's not doing anybody any good this is not a fashion statement this right here this is the fashion statement we want to be making here um and it's a very it's a safety fashion statement it's just not it's not just for fun and so please just cover your nose you know it's very easy it's a piece of fabric it's. We're not telling you to wear this because we're trying to control you we are trying to control the virus that's what this is about that's what it's always been about you know doctors surgeons nurses they've always worn face coverings face masks they've worn masks because it protects either you or the person you're around and so we know this is proven to help. So please wear it properly it should fit pretty snugly um you shouldn't have any trouble breathing if you do you know take it off step away from people take a few deep breaths i myself have anxiety and this pandemic has only increased that anxiety so sometimes i do have to take a moment take it off take a few deep breaths because it can be it you have to get used to it right but we should all be pretty used to it by now. so just.

LL: So you know i i know a lot of people have a problem with wearing a face mask but you have to look and find the good and bad so we are people have been creative and wearing some very stylish um uh face mask and one thing i enjoy is i don't have to go every two or three days and clip the gray hairs out of my beard or must my little bit of muscle.

MM: You know i don't wear makeup on this half of my face get it

LL: Or you don't have to spend money on lipstick yeah and also it created another stream of revenue for small businesses i was a saw business on 13th street the other day and they had a window full of mass so we have to look at the bright side of this to get us through this time and slow the spread So i mentioned earlier that you are in charge of messaging for social media and the messaging has changed talk about it how it was before.

 MM: So in the beginning you know as we were learning more about the virus it was it was very much uh you know there's no community spread right now but we need to be washing our hands don't touch your face and when we say don't touch your face we mean don't in particular don't touch your eyes your nose in your mouth because that's how the virus is going to enter your body and you know washing your hands consistently at least for 20 seconds because the soap combined with the water it breaks down the virus and it you know essentially gets rid of it off your hands and so those two things together make a huge difference. And so you know we start with very basic messaging but we're seeing that people are you know people you know they're hearing the same thing over and over again and so we're trying to meet people wherever where they're at and reminding them you know since the beginning this is this is all about prevention and that hasn't changed what has changed is how much we've learned about the virus and what we have learned is that face coverings and keeping your distance significantly decrease how much exposure you will have.

LL: So let's take a look at some of the recent messaging uh that we are producing on our social media platforms this one says wash your hands like your life depends on it because it does trying to talk about.

MM: Yeah so that's we really want to focus on how easy an easy way is to keep the virus from entering your body that you sort you know have more control over which is when you're out in public you know don't be and don't be touching your face covering either when we say don't touch your face also don't touch your face covering if you're touching other services in the public because then it gets on your face covering and so you want to remove it you know without touching anything around it and really take it off fold it inside out you know lay it there but when you're washing your hands you know you really want to get a lather going at least 20 seconds I i sing the alphabet song or some other song i'm doing it and i have not washed my hands so much in my entire life because everything i touch i'm just making sure because it's just a very easy way to do it and your you it really could save your life because it keeps the virus from from you actually introducing the virus into your body. if somebody sneezes on you you don't have as much control over that but you do have control over how you touch your face.

LL: So let's go back we were talking earlier this morning when we arrived here and you said something that was kind of shocking to me that you're hearing that people are sharing masks.

MM: We did hear yes so two things here um people going to restaurants one you should only be going with your household because as we've seen you know just spending time with people uh and not wearing face coverings that's going to spread it but we were hearing that people were sharing their face covering like underwear you don't want to be doing that you also don't want to be turning your face covering inside out and then using it again without washing it so just keep going  back to the underwear analogy this the virus could be on your mask so you don't want to turn it inside out you don't want to share it with other people. uh that's please don't do that that's all i got to say about that.

LL: All right let's move on to the next message it says you had the sex and drugs talk now it is time for the COVID talk this one is a little bit uh bold yes this is for parents of who have younger kids in their 20s teens that you know this is serious if we don't get a handle on this virus you know we have to learn to live with this virus and being young you know you think you're invincible you want to be rebellious or you're just sick and tired of staying home and not seeing your friends totally understood but the fact is we're like i said we're seeing hospitalization rates go up for people in our 20s we don't know all the long-term health effects of this virus. One thing i keep coming back to is people tend to look at this in black and white which is living versus dying and it's not only about that. One is i'm not okay with two percent of the population dying um neither should you or you know anybody here that's not okay this is not a virus that you want to get and get it over with because we are saying that um that's not the case there could be long-term health effects um and you know so it's not just about living versus nine you might just not get it and then it's over with like the common cold or something like that yeah so.

LL: There's so much to.

MM: People need to think about it differently.

LL: Yeah there's so much to think about here i mean you can get the virus give it to someone else and they die from it also you can increase the COVID-19 cases in the county which causes businesses to be closed people to lose their business people like me who want to go and visit the business we can't go also we have to think about our health care workers we will overwhelm our health care system if we have so many cases uh and those we have to think about those essential workers at the hospital as well so it's not just about you it's about you  neighbor it's about your community

MM: Uh you can be asymptomatic

LL: yeah

MM: At least they're they're re they're noticing that it's much higher at least 25 percent of people will not have symptoms while they are infectious which means you could be passing the virus on to anybody and not even know it. And that's you know we just need to be keeping that in mind and so we implore parents of young people to have a talk like you would have a sex talk or a drugs talk because this is um they could get you know hurt they could really um have a very severe case of this we just don't know.

LL: Yeah and that moves us on to our uh the last messaging uh uh that we posted here the majority of COVID-19 cases are people 49 and younger 95 percent of COVID related deaths are people 50 or older you do the math.

MM: yeah so this kind of goes back again to either people under 50 not realizing they're asymptomatic or i'm just thinking you know i'm not going to get it i can't i'm not going to pass it on to anybody else we saw the community transmission and unknown rate is the highest percentage of cases that basically means that people are getting it in the community when they go out in public when they go to the grocery store when they go on public transit when they go to into a business that's what community transmission means means we can't trace it back to a known positive case or a close contact.

LL: All right i am going back here we are getting a lot of messages from people who are in the personal care services industry mainly uh barbers and hairdressers and there's still a little bit of confusion about why you're operating outdoors we hope to have more information coming up this week on the program but I want to let you know that because of the state's watch list that is why we're operating with the current restrictions it did not come from the county as you may know  we were set to open but we went on the watch list but so it is because of the state that we are currently operating uh outdoors for some of those businesses and others are closed but i think the main thing here is you know we there's a lot of focus on what's open what's close uh if school will start and if we focus on slowing the spread that's going to take care of all of that so.

MM: Sacrifices it's a sacrifice it really is um it's going to be going on much longer the more that we try to bend the rules find loopholes and things i just can't emphasize enough that this is brand new we just do not know what this virus is capable of so don't gamble with it the virus has not shown all of its cards we're still learning about it.

LL: Yeah and there's no way around it all right well i think we'll stop talking about it because i feel emotions starting to come up because we're a little bit tired of it ourselves all right i thank you for being here as always and uh thank you for being here as well and thank you for watching stay safe everyone look out for yourself but most of all look out for your neighbor have a good day.