3.2.2021 Press Conference SCC Red Tier

County of Santa Clara
March 2, 2021
Press Conference: Santa Clara County Moves to Red Tier

[Music]


Good afternoon. My name is James Williams, and I'm the county counsel for the County of Santa Clara. Thanks for joining us. We have some important announcements to share about the county moving into the Red Tier and how the county will be aligning with the State's framework. Joining me this afternoon is Dr. Sara Cody, the County Health Officer and Director of the Public Health Department, and Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, Vice Chair of the Board of Supervisors. I also want to acknowledge the rest of the Board of Supervisors President Mike Wasserman, Supervisor Cindy Chavez, Supervisor Joe Simitian, and Supervisor Otto Lee. I'm going to turn it over first to Dr Cody and then i'm going to come back up and talk a little bit more with some of the details about what these changes entering the Red Tier mean for us here in Santa Clara County.

Dr. Sara Cody: Thank you, James. So good afternoon, everyone. I'm Dr Sara Cody, Health Officer for Santa Clara County. I just want to observe that it's been almost exactly one year since March 9, 2020, and that's the day that I issued the very first health order in our county to protect the public from COVID-19. On March 9, 2020, our county had recorded 43 cases of COVID-19 and one death. And on that day, I issued an order to prohibit gatherings of more than a thousand people. Today we have recorded almost a hundred and eleven thousand cases of COVID-19 and just under eighteen hundred deaths, with an additional 164 cases and 16 deaths recorded today. We are coming out of a devastating winter surge that claimed the lives of too many county residents and left many others with grief, sorrow, missing family members, and all of us with a sense of loss of many kinds.

But we now find ourselves on firmer footing, and as of today, we meet the metrics for the Red Tier of the State's Blueprint. Effective tomorrow, we will be largely aligned with the State's Blueprint. This is a significant change for us, as we've traditionally kept local rules in place, some more strict, some less strict than the State's rules, but we are now adjusting our approach to enable us to focus a hundred percent of our energy on what we know is our clear path out of this epidemic, and that is vaccination.

Our goal is to bring an end to this pandemic and to enable all of us to resume the parts of our lives that we miss and that we need. It's been an extraordinarily long year for everyone, we have and we will continue to do everything that we can to safeguard the health of everyone living and working in our county. Our community knows what to do to keep each other safe, we need to stay strong, but we also have reason for hope. Since the first COVID-19 was given on Thursday, December 17, 2020, we have since given over 400,000 doses, and just less than 60 percent of people over 65 have received at least one dose. During the course of this pandemic, 81 percent of the deaths in our county have been among people 65 and over so this vaccination progress protects us and is a a reason for us to be able to relax just a little.

So please remember just because the state's framework may allow an activity it does not mean that it is safe, for example, it's especially risky for someone who is older, or who has chronic health conditions, and who's not yet received a vaccine to be indoors, particularly in an indoor setting where not everyone is wearing a mask, so we continue to urge everyone to stick to the principles that we know help keep each other safe, number one, go outdoors. Outdoors always safer than indoors where there's plenty of natural ventilation. Number two, keep your mask on, whether you're indoors or outdoors, and whether you're required to or not. Keep your mask on. Three, keep your distance from others who you don't live with, and finally get vaccinated when it's your turn. Thanks so much.

JW: So as Dr Cody mentioned the county effective tomorrow is in the State's Red Tier, and as a result a number of activities that the State allows in the Red Tier will now be able to resume here in Santa Clara County. What does that mean here? It means that retail and shopping centers are open at 50 percent capacity, up from the current 20. Museums, zoos, and aquariums at 25 capacity, that movie theaters can open at 25 capacity or 100 people. Gyms and fitness centers at 10 percent capacity, and significantly indoor dining restaurants at 25 percent capacity or 100 people.

In addition though, the the basic County risk reduction order does remain in effect. Those are the same core across the board principles that have been true for many months now in the pandemic, that means that folks should be using face coverings, and maximizing social distancing, and that businesses and entities are still required to maximize telework, to have a social distancing protocol on file and implemented, and you should recognize and see that check mark at every place that you enter, and that there is still a requirement to report any COVID-19 cases to the county public health department. But the other activity and sector-specific local directives, such as the mandatory travel quarantine, will no longer be in effect from tomorrow, but with new variants still spreading everyone is still urged to follow the State's Travel Advisory, to avoid all non-essential travel and to quarantine after any travel that you may partake in.

Again as Dr Cody mentioned, it's still essential to follow all the basic safety measures, to go outdoors because outdoor activities are safer than indoor activities, to stay masked, to maintain social distancing, to avoid crowds, and to get vaccinated when it's your turn. We've made tremendous progress as a community coming off of the December surge. Vaccinations are increasing with nearly 20 percent of the county's population, having received one dose, and as Dr Cody mentioned many of our most vulnerable community members, having been prioritized and received a dose of the vaccine. But we want to get through to the end of the pandemic together, as a community, to do so we're going to remain focused on vaccination, but we also need people to continue to practice these core basic safety principles that we've had in place now for many months that we know are effective. We know face masking works. We know social distancing works. We know outdoor activities are much, much, much safer than indoor activities. So following those core principles will help get us, as a community, where we need to be until everyone is able to be fully vaccinated. With that, i'm going to turn it over now to Supervisor Susan Ellenberg.

Supervisor Susan Ellenberg: Good afternoon. Today feels like a beautiful spring day, though we are just barely into March, and we all remember what last March felt like. It may be March once again, but this is not the same March that we experienced in 2020. This year we have multiple effective vaccines, and we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Case counts, hospitalizations, and deaths are all decreasing. We could not have gotten to where we are today without every resident in our county doing their part, but as I am sure you are so tired of hearing, we aren't home free yet. The virus is still here, there are variants, and we haven't all been vaccinated. We can only continue to move in this direction if we all do our part. I'm going to repeat what both, Dr Cody and James Williams said, in terms of safe behaviors. Yes, it's repetitive, and it should be a mantra. These are things that we all need to do, stay outdoors whenever possible, keep your mask on, proper and consistent use of face masking of face coverings, especially double masking is very effective at preventing the spread, maintain at least a six foot distance from others who do not live with you, avoid crowds, the fewer people you encounter and the fewer social interactions you have, the lower the chances are that the virus will spread, and finally, get vaccinated when it is your turn. All federally approved vaccines work well and will keep you, your family, and your friends safe. We will get through this together.

Roger Ross: We'll now go to questions and answers. Please identify your question is for, and we'll start with kpix.

Media question about 49ers and Levi's Stadium.

JW: Just the question was about uh Levi's Stadium with 49ers and their announcement earlier about putting together a committee to focus on uh health and safety protocols at the stadium. We look forward to seeing the protocols that they put together. You know, we'll see how, of course, the pandemic continues to evolve. Right now we're focused on vaccination, and the Levi's Stadium site is a key piece of that effort and our partnership with the 49ers in that work is really pivotal in providing vaccines to the community, and i think they even acknowledge that, as part of their statement, that that's one of the things, one of the best things that we can do right now. So that we are all in a place together as a community, where large sporting events, large concerts, and other activities can resume safely for all of us, something we all very much want to see happen, and happen soon. And getting everyone vaccinated is is our best path to get there.

Media question about small businesses especially suffering.

JW: I can start, so the question was uh you know, what assurance can we give especially small businesses? um who you know have had to maybe open and close as we've moved between tears and things have changed. um and you know, we very much hope that we do not have another spike in cases for so many reasons, one of them of course being the impact on our business community, but also the impact on our families, and and the impact in terms of of deaths and hospitalizations in our community. There's one thing, i think everyone in Santa Clara County can agree on, and that is that we want to continue heading in the trajectory we have been the last few weeks, which is fewer cases, fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths, and if we can maintain that, then we will be in a place where we go from red to orange to yellow, where we'll be able to have more and more activities, where with our focus on vaccination, we will be in a much much safer place as a community and hopefully not have to return to what we had before. The, though, one last piece that i'll add is that's why we're emphasizing today so strongly, you heard all three of us emphasize continuing to follow core critical safety precautions, and that's because if we keep that up collectively as a community, we can maintain the progress we have made, we can build on it and not be in a place like what happened after Thanksgiving with a big surge in cases. So that's in all of our collective hands, and, and we know that those principles work, outdoors, masked, social distancing, get vaccinated when it's your turn.

Supervisor Ellenberg: Thank you for the question. Our economy is driven by our local businesses, and it's our small, smallest businesses, many of which are owned by women, by immigrants, by people of color, that have been hit the hardest, and it's been a priority of mine throughout the pandemic to try to offer support wherever possible to connect businesses to loan programs. My, my colleagues and i approved a six million dollar depot loan into the California Rebuilding Fund specifically in order to support those local businesses. We need to, we've also learned a lot through this process in working with our our local businesses, as partners, understanding more and more what they can do to keep themselves and their clients and customers safe, and i think that's a partnership that will be critical to continue as we move more and more toward a re-opening.

Media question about vaccinations.

Dr Cody: So we've set goals for our county for vaccination. Our goal is to have 85 percent of the eligible population vaccinated by mid-summer. Reaching our goal, of course, depends very much on the vaccine supply, and that's a part of the equation over which we do not have control. However we the county have set up many, many, many different avenues and opportunities from for vaccination from mass facts at Levi's Stadium to very small sort of boutique pop-up and everything in between, because we know that vaccination is the most important activity that our county is undertaking right now. When enough of us are vaccinated against COVID-19, we will be able to relax many of the measures that we have in place and return to some semblance of our former lives.

Media  question.

Dr Cody: In Santa Clara County, we feel like we are beginning to hit our stride. We are able to reach the people that we need to reach to the best of our ability. We have developed partnerships with many, and right now, the system, as we have it, is working fairly well. Our biggest limitation is vaccine supply.

RR: Thank you, everyone for being here. We'll now move to the Spanish portion of our event.

[Press statements from the podium in Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Tagalog].