09.21.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
September 21, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
10:00am PT

David Campos: Good morning everyone my name is David Campos welcome to Facebook live with the County of Santa Clara I am here with James Williams who is our County Council before we begin i just want to note that we are taking off our face coverings so that we can allow the ASL interpreters to properly interpret the content of the program for our hearing impaired viewers as a best practice they're not able to do that translation that interpretation without us actually taking off our face coverings I also want to note that at the bottom of the screen throughout the program today you will see the numbers the latest numbers in terms of COVID cases for the county of Santa Clara so again

DC: here I am very honored to welcome James Williams who is the County Council and one of the Directors of the Emergency Operations center welcome welcome back to the show James thank you uh so we are here today to talk about uh the most recent order that has been issued by the Public Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody and it has to do with testing so it was issued last week it goes into effect on Friday of this week so can you tell us James what is this order about

James Williams: sure I think the the first thing that's important to recognize is you know why are we even doing a testing order um why is testing important uh Dr. Cody from the beginning has been actually quite clear that testing is essential it's really at the beginning of us being able to identify and then break chains of transmission and if people who are symptomatic or suspect that they have COVID or people who have come into close contact with someone who is confirmed to have had COVID or someone who has regular frequent interaction with members of the public because of their work those are all categories of folks where it's vital that there be testing to catch cases to help support the isolation of those cases and quarantine of individuals who've come into contact with them and that's how we break the chains of transmission and keep covid as contained as possible the other important thing about testing is without regular frequent accessible timely testing we can't know what's going on we can't see the spread of COVID and community and testing has been such a challenge right from the beginning here in the United States and it's really been hindering the effectiveness of the response nationally across California and even here locally but here in Santa Clara county there have been extraordinary investments in testing extraordinary push to provide and expand testing the County itself through its own health system has stepped up and done a tremendous amount of testing free accessible testing throughout the community but part of that part of actually being able to get to the level of testing that we need is that we also need to have all of our health care systems do their part too just like for any other illness just like for any other condition we go to our normal primary care provider we go to our normal doctors our normal clinics to get treatment to get tested that is equally true just as true for covid19 and so back in June actually the County Health Officer issued the first order related to testing requiring that large health care systems step up and provide testing for priority categories and what was announced last week was really a an enhancement of that order which goes into effect this Friday

DC: now James I remember before the june order was issued that and i remember having conversations with folks about hoping that there was no need to issue the order uh so can you talk a little bit about that so that people understand that it wasn't like you just issued the order uh that you actually tried to figure out a way of getting these providers to do testing without an order and likewise why a second order you know so what's going on here

JW: yeah that's is exactly right um right from the beginning there have been conversations uh to provide assistance to provide support to help with supply chains to help with providing recommendations and the Public Health Department from the beginning has been pushing out guidance on testing and priority categories for testing and urging testing and also providing a lot of support and resources to promote testing by large Healthcare Systems you know these are the systems that actually are responsible for taking care of the vast majority of residents here in Santa Clara County and they're well-resourced systems and so even though it's hard work and even though supply chains sometimes have been very challenged and impacted these are systems that have the wherewithal to step up to the plate and get us where we need to be for testing just like the County's own Health System has done

DC: well one of the things James that we have heard or at least members of the public have heard from some of these systems perhaps an explanation or a justification is that it's really hard to get the supplies to get all the things you need to make testing happen I know I've heard that repeatedly and yet the county has been able to overcome some of those same obstacles can you talk a little bit about that

JW: yeah that's exactly right the County you know operates Valley Medical Center and its clinics County has its own large Health System and faces the same kinds of challenges it is hard we have had challenges Nationwide in having access to reagents to supplies that are needed turnaround times have been challenging but these are all obstacles that through diligence and hard work and dedication from from our staff at the County we've been able to overcome we've been able to build in redundancy and we've been able to provide accessible testing to the community I think the most significant recent example is stepping up the Fairground site where we now can provide 1500 tests on a drive-through basis uh throughout the week uh daily so you know the these are challenges that are real but they're absolutely challenges that can be overcome and we know that because we are overcoming them

DC: now let's let's give some specific numbers here uh the to some of the numbers we looked at the week of August 31st through September 6. uh during that week Kaiser Permanente conducted 4261 tests Stanford 3243 Sutter 1426 El Camino 679 HCA Healthcare 633 again the highest number four thousand in that same period the County conducted 13 000 so you can see the difference and it's not like the County doesn't have the same challenges

JM: that's exactly right and we actually have um you know we have all this information on one of the dashboards on our website you can go and monitor the progress yourself you can look at the rates based also on the patient population served to get a sense of what's the magnitude versus how many patients that system normally takes care of for uh healthcare needs and it shows the disparity is quite stark and significant

DC: now James one of the things that i saw in the order was uh this thing this notice that has to be put up by the providers can you talk a little bit more about that

JW: absolutely so um the recent order was issued to really provide some more to enhance the the june order in order to better achieve the goals one of those requirements is a requirement that these systems provide affirmative notice to patients that means you'll see once the order goes into effect you'll see notices in patient waiting areas you'll see notices on websites you'll see notices in communications and materials related to COVID-19. that's so that people then know who is eligible and what the requirements are so let me cover some of those because i think that's really what's critical so who's eligible anyone who is symptomatic needs to get tested anyone who has COVID-19 symptoms anyone who has been a close contact with a case whether or not they have symptoms and by the way there was recent controversy around some CDC guidance that has now been rescinded and replaced that suggested that if you did not have symptoms and you were close contact you did not need to be tested that was wrong the CDC has now put out revised guidance but our local Health Officials have been very consistent if you're a close contact you do need to get tested regardless of whether you have symptoms third category anybody referred for testing by the Public Health Department especially through the contact tracing process and then the fourth category this is a really important one for the broader public anyone who's an essential worker so what does that mean an essential worker we have actually now aligned with the exact same definition from the State for the mandate the State is placing on insurers for COVID-19 testing coverage and that definition of essential workers is quite broad includes teachers, grocery store clerks, agricultural workers obviously first responders and Health care workers but many many categories and you can you know take a look at either the State definition or ours because they're now the same and see it's a long list of folks but basically individuals who are in a kind of work where they may come into frequent contact with a large number of individuals those essential workers even if they're not symptomatic and even if they're not a close contact to a case can and should get tested and the order requires that these providers provide that testing to their patients um every 14 days

DC: let me ask you a couple of questions about let's say that you call Kaiser you know and I'm a member of Kaiser and you tell them that you're symptomatic or that you were exposed to someone who had COVID do you have to prove that to them how does that work

JW: you know that's a great question so one of the things this enhanced order does is tries to remove some of the barriers that people were reporting to us as challenges uh to actually getting testing and getting tested quickly so the the enhanced order includes uh requirements that the Healthcare systems make testing easy and accessible that they remove impediments to that testing like complicated phone trees or requiring appointments with doctors if you're not symptomatic or and requires that the testing be provided timely so for if you're symptomatic or close contact or referred for testing specifically by the Public Health Department that means within the next business day if you call or electronically schedule if you're an essential worker doing routine surveillance testing on the periodic basis that means within three business days and then also a requirement that results be timely we know that that's been a challenge as well and so the the order requires that healthcare systems provide results within three business days or if there's some reason they can't they need to affirmatively tell the County what they're going to do to resolve that backlog because we know that the backlog and getting testing results really has a negative impact on getting people quickly contact traced and breaking those chains of transmission

DC: so for viewers out there let's say that one of them goes to Kaiser or Sutter and for whatever reason maybe they get the runaround what are your options what do you do

JW: so um if if you're having a problem uh getting tested first you should you know remind your provider of these rights through the patient notice but if you have a any uh violations that you believe are occurring we have a website with a dedicated complaint portal and a phone number i think those are being displayed on the screen but the website is SCC COVID concerns that's sccovidconcerns.org and you can go there you can actually use the same portal to file complaints about about the other health orders too but it specifically includes this uh testing order

DC: now James we uh as you know we were moved into the risk uh the red risk level and if after being there for 14 days your numbers still remain more or less in that area you you might you have the option School Districts do of opening up in classroom learning can you talk a little bit about the connection between that possibility and the importance of testing

JW: absolutely so um it's possible that we'll find out that and we'll find out the news tomorrow so we'll see but but that's i think a reasonably likely outcome um you know school opening presents a lot of volume um a lot of volume of interaction and so it's very important that we have robust testing infrastructure and so the testing order does include teachers and other school staff and school workers as essential workers who can get tested through their health care providers and that's going to be really important in helping ensure that we are keeping on top of things as schools now open up you know we want to stay in the red tier and in fact actually related to testing one of the only reasons we entered the red tier is because the state through this new system gives an adjustment based on the volume of testing that's occurring and because our County is one that tests above the State average we got credit towards that that that adjusted our case rate uh down from the purple tier into the red tier um and so that's important uh too but as we move forward um you know expanding testing is absolutely critical having accessible testing is absolutely vital and you know we our need as a community as a collective community is for all of our large healthcare providers to do their proportionate share in helping take care of us through this health care crisis

DC: now James I know that we don't really want to get to this point but what happens if after all of this the issuance of uh an order every vice order if any of these providers still refuses to enhance their testing what's what are your options

JW: well some have you know heard me say before you know these health orders are mandatory um they they are the law and we take that very seriously and so if there are violations do report them you know scccovidconcerns.org we will investigate them this order is covered under the civil enforcement structure that the County adopted in early August that means that providers that violate the order are subject to fines and are potentially subject to other remedies as well and that's something that we are keeping a very very close eye on you know our expectation just like it is for all the businesses in our community and all of our individuals and families who have been doing such a great job for so many months now in closely following these State and local public health orders our expectation is that these large health care systems do exactly that as well but we are prepared to take enforcement action if we need to

DC: now I remember when uh the issue of testing was something that we were focused on even more so because we're trying to ramp up our testing uh that it came down to uh investment right it takes a lot of money being invested to be able to overcome some of these hurdles so this is just me talking it seems to me that if these private hospitals are willing to put in the money to actually have the level of testing that is needed that they can actually do it the way the County has

JW: you know I think that's true I would add you know that Federal and state regulations mandate insurance reimbursement so that is there too um and you know this this is part of the standard of care now uh COVID 19 this pandemic is the critical health issue facing our community and so for our health care systems to make the investments needed to deal with that i think is an expectation in our community not something that we would say is you know should be unique it should be the standard it's the standard of care

DC: well I think that that probably says it better than I could so James thank you very much for the opportunity

JW: thank you

DC: to those of you that are watching please make sure that you continue to monitor a website different dashboards and make sure that you understand your rights under this new order and that you exercise those rights and report any violation to everyone out there please have a wonderful day uh stay safe uh be careful and stay tuned uh we will be having actually uh an on the field uh event coming up on Wednesday we will be in East San Jose talking about the efforts to do Outreach to one of the hardest hits community hardest hit communities with respect to COVID so stay tuned and of course we have other Facebook lives that will be taking place in Spanish and Vietnamese later this week thank you very much enjoy your day