07.31.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
July 31, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
10:00am PT

Larry Little: Hi everybody thanks you for joining us I’m Larry Little we begin this morning with a closer look at the rate of testing in Santa Clara county. As you can see on the map here behind me we have ramped up testing locations from south county and Morgan hill Gilroy all the way to north county. But still today community members are experiencing issues when it comes to getting testing and that should not be happening as we have expanded testing with our June 10th order and my colleague Todd is here to talk about that June 10th order that expanded testing to make things a little bit easier for community members here in the county. So just talk a little bit about what that order did.

Todd Naffziger: Absolutely so diagnostic testing is very important to our community it allows us to identify who is sick with COVID who may be at the early stages of that so that we can provide care for those people who are have contracted the disease. As well as prevent a lot of deaths. Which is we have been doing a great job of doing that as well. Unfortunately, we have lost a few individuals and our hearts go out to those who have. On top of that this order allowed for people who are experiencing symptoms as well as those who have been exposed to somebody who is positive but yet they may not be experiencing symptoms as well as those individuals who are high risk and who are high risk are those front-line workers such as pharmacy techs EMTs EMS services our firemen our police officers our grocery store workers our restaurant employees as well as people who are frequently riding public transportation to get that test at no cost to themselves without question. So the order that came out on June 10th required that all health care facilities provide a diagnostic test at no cost to the person.

LL: Yeah Todd in uh on June 10th Dr Marty actually did a press conference here you know just kind of talking more about that letting the community know that they can be tested because that's the only way we're going to slow the spread of the virus is by more testing. Let's take a look at this video from June


Dr. Marty: Is testing by our large healthcare systems and that has occurred for a number of reasons a lot of them I are are well-meaning they want to do the testing they've come up against a number of barriers and these barriers are being worked on such as testing kits and reagents the chemicals that they use however it's just not happened we just have not seen the numbers uh being generated by our large healthcare systems are there any healthcare providers in particular that you think should be doing more I remember at a recent uh meeting of the board of supervisors I think Kaiser was identified a couple of other local ones any that you would say really should be doing more at this point well we you know in this order we're basically saying all the healthcare providers so without singling them out yes it is it's Kaiser it's PAM it's Stanford um and all the all the rest of the hospitals. As I say the one organization that is really stepped up to do more than their share has been valley medical center and so the most of these numbers that we're seeing in the in in our testing levels have come because of a valley medical center. Which means that if valley medical center can do it and find the reagents then any of those other systems can do the same and with the help of the state they should be successful in in maintaining a high level of testing

LL: And Todd despite this order coming out on June 10th we're still seeing some of the same issues where the rate of testing is not taking place fast enough some people being turned away for example I went to my healthcare provider online and uh you know tried to schedule testing for COVID-19. They sent me to a survey and after I completed the survey it was about three or four questions it told me that I did not need testing because I did not have the symptoms. People are constantly contacting us here's one of the emails that we received on Facebook why are you telling people that work with the public to get tested once a month if they cannot get tested without jumping through hoops and driving out of their city to do it. So, what do you say to people who are experiencing issues getting tested because we have testing all the way from south county to north county?

TN: Yeah and this is a common concern we get especially with our phone calls and our emails and especially with our social media that are coming in at a greater frequency now. People complaining about not being able to get tested their frontline workers they're exposed to people but they're not presenting symptoms. So, they have hit a lot of barriers and really what we tell these people is what we tell any business that's not in compliance tell any community member excuse me that observes a business that is not in compliance with any of the orders which is they do actually need to file a complaint with the district attorney's office. But personally, the best thing anybody can do is really strongly advocate for themselves because nobody else is going to advocate for you. So really lean on them really express That you know you have a great concern for your health because you know what you work at a grocery store or you know you're in a kitchen all day you should really make sure that your voice is is strongly heard especially with your provider. And if they're denying you too.

LL: And we really appreciate when people contact us email us call us because we don't know what's happening in the community unless community members are telling us. let's take a look at the numbers here uh just to see who is doing what when it comes to testing. You can see here a county of Santa Clara health system is at the top of the list. We're doing more than our share so far 103,000 tests and then right after that some of the others just just talk about network capacity versus the community here and in the testing rate that's happening.

TN: Absolutely um so we obviously release our testing numbers daily we're doing thousands of thousands and thousands of tests a month and obviously the county serves over 2 million people but you know we have health care providers in this county that serve over well over half of that population and they have the same access to resources and so forth that we do. So like Larry had so eloquently said you know they're not keeping pace with uh our current system which is causing it to overflow in a sense where people are having to wait in lines or having to come back at a later date because they've reached the amount of uh they've exceeded the amount of materials that they have for that testing site for that day especially with their pop-ups so it's really it really expresses how critical it is for people to go to their provider to ensure that they get tested there as well.

LL: Yeah testing is a very important part of the solving the puzzle here and slowing the spread let's just not to call anybody out but let's just look at this this list here and we see you know Kaiser here uh they have a they have hundreds of  thousands of uh people in their network and when you look at the testing it's it's very low and then some of the others too you know El Camino uh health they have a capacity to actually do more and people want to be tested they're contacting us and they're saying they're having to stand in long wait in long lines or be turned away so just again talk about what people should do if this happens because it's happening a lot and we're we're about two or three months into testing and it's still happening.

TN: Yeah and uh COVID-19 is not going to go anywhere people are going to need to be tested for a very long time. But again, people should really advocate for their health and they should be contacting their provider because the order actually stipulates by law that if you are experiencing symptoms you can get tested if you're not experiencing symptoms but have been exposed to someone who has COVID-19 you can get tested if you're a high risk person like for example those frontline workers if you regularly take public transportation you are require are allowed to get tested at your provider at no cost. So please contact your provider as well and ensure that you're getting tested. We hear it all the time from people in our community that they're hitting a lot of barriers please keep contacting your provider they're required to provide that COVID-19 test for you if you meet those three categories.

LL: And if you're having issues still feel free to contact us here at the county let we will continue to look into it as well as we offer free testing here but you should be able to get this testing done through your provider this is going to ease some of the pain of people who don't have insurance and need to go to some of the free absolutely testing sites. Let's take a look at the data dashboard as of yesterday we have cumulative cases of COVID-19 in the county 9731 three new deaths certainly our thoughts are with the families who have lost loved ones due to COVID-19 and you can see there our hospitalization rate we're up to 177 only a few months ago we were down to about 52 so i know a lot of people have questions about that but you know if we just slow the spread at the hospitalization rate will go down you know there's no escape in this virus. i've said it uh many times before on this program we have to follow the social distancing and physical distance guidelines as well as frequently washing our hands as well as wearing a mask i want to say we had our mask on prior to this broadcast but we do remove them so everyone can properly and clearly understand the information that we are sharing. You know uh as we close out i want to take a look at the watch list here you know we had a lot of comments a lot of people are looking to put blame on Dr. Cody uh when she's only doing the job of of the health officer for county. As well as saying that the blame is on other things but we all have to do our part you know what I and and some people were saying well the county is being too strict so I’m going to go to Santa Cruz to go to the gym or the county is being too strict I’m going to go to san Mateo to get my hair done but I want to let you know that the state has put all of these counties on a watch list our county has been on it a little bit longer than some of the other counties but they have since been added this week alone Santa Cruz was added to the watch list and san Mateo was added a few days ago so everyone is under the same restrictions as Santa Clara county. So, we just have to do our part to slow the spread of the virus.

TN: Yeah absolutely and we provide a lot of guidance on our website as well too for these business to be able to operate outdoors we understand that a lot of personal care services are you know feeling the pain of this disease right now but I mean thankfully the state as well as us our county as well have provided that guidance for them to modify their business to the best of their ability so please reach out to them don't assume they're closed just reach out and see how they're operating at this time too.

LL: Yeah, I went to get some food the other day and I I pulled up to the uh well it's the vegetarian house and the parking lot was empty and I was like it's closed. I was almost about to turn around and leave yeah but somebody came to the window so yeah support those local businesses everyone's having a very difficult time right now in all of the counties and the way we can help them is by doing our part to slow the spread. All right well that's going to do it for this edition of live with the county of Santa Clara thanks for joining us have a great weekend everybody and be safe.