08.03.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
August 03, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
10:00am PT

Marianna Moles: Good morning and welcome to live with the county here in Santa Clara my name is Marianna Moles and i'm a public information officer here with the Emergency Operations Center and today we're going to be spending some time answering some questions that the community sends to us through social media and our FAQ inbox. We do want to let you know that that safety is a priority here at the emergency operations center and we do follow all of the COVID-19 guidelines at every other workplace and everybody else is following. for the so far this segment our face coverings are removed so that our American sign language interpreters can understand us and all the information that we're sharing with you today. Just a quick update before we get started on the total case count we hit 10 000 cases over the weekend it's a grim milestone for the county we are currently at 10 deaths no new deaths as of today our thoughts and prayers are with the families who have lost loved ones to COVID-19. So we have Todd here today our FAQ guru.

Todd Naffziger: How about that.

MM: And so, we get so many questions from the community we work so hard to answer everybody's question the best that we can with the information that we have available so let's just kick things off what should a business do if an employee tests positive for COVID-19 and has been at the workplace while positive? What should an employee do if they test positive and have been attending work? this kind of this is important because we just announced Costco

TN: yeah

MM: Had cases and this is going to happen

TN: Absolutely i mean COVID isn't going anywhere it's living within our workplaces obviously what happened last week so chronologically what should happen is if an employee does test positive for COVID-19 they should immediately notify their employer to which that employer should immediately notify the county and we have those resources available on our website under our businesses and workplace guidances so once that employer does notify the county they must kind of go through their own individual contact tracing methodology meaning that they need to identify what employees have been within close contact of that positive case meaning that anyone who has been within six feet of a positive case for at least be instructed to isolate at home and get tested as well. So once we have all of the you know procedures of who and theoretically who may be uh sick they need to ensure that they kind of open the areas that that employee was working at for about windows and doors or as practically available as as as needed as well excuse me. So that they can air out the room and they need to make sure they clean and sanitize that workstation following the CDC guidance that we do have post on our website in that same section as well. So they would it's not a quick and easy process but it involves a lot of a lot of investigation and also to keep in mind those employers should be keeping that medical information confidential and it shouldn't be released to other staff as well too.

MM: And what about break rooms you want to touch a little bit on the that seems to be the most common factor that we are seeing in the workplace spread of COVID is in the break room where people are eating lunch maybe letting their guard down a little bit around their co-workers

 TN: Well i would say that it's really not just break rooms but anywhere at your job site where you feel like you're getting a little bit too comfortable this is going on for a long period of time it's human nature for people to get complacent so it goes to the root of what we're supposed to do which is social distancing using the break room as an example. If you have a break room you should be maintaining at least six feet from other people who are in that room you shouldn't be congregating those surfaces and so forth in that break room should be sanitized appropriately after every use as well too. If people want to eat their lunch at their work site we do recommend people go outside because as we've seen outside is safer than inside but people should still strictly be following the social discipline requirements while at work. Additionally, employers should be following the order which means that they must maximize the number of staff working from home. Just because you can have a staff go to work doesn't mean you should they should still be maximizing the amount of employees working from home which will help prevent the spread of COVID-19. less people less probability in theory

MM: And the county is working very closely with any workplace that has reported cases of COVID-19 to like you said do contact tracing and help reduce the spread um here's the next question from our community are personal care businesses allowed to operate outdoors is a safe also i observed a few places operating outside but inviting customers on the inside as well

TN: Yes so personal care facilities are allowed to operate outdoors in conjunction with the guidance provided by the state as well as the guidance provided by the board of barbering and cosmetology i'm glad i said that right because i keep saying barbary but in conjunction with their guidance as well they would be allowed to operate outdoors however they would not be allowed to provide any of their service inside their actual brick and mortar facility

MM: Okay how can someone file a complaint about a business and where can an employee file a complaint about their employer do i have to give my personal information? So two two questions here so let's start with the business.

TN: Yeah absolutely um if a community member has a complaint they want to raise about say a business not wearing their masks or they're not washing their hands so this would be a community member complaining about a business they would need to go to the office of our district attorney and submit an online complaint there. For the second part of that question if i'm an employee and i want to complain about my employer not following the rules the best direction we can point you in is to contact the office of labor standards and enforcement because they're handling those more internal complaints right now about employers they you can leave an anonymous complaint if you feel that you your identity can't be protected. But in all sincerity we do not release people's identities when they provide them to us. So your confidentiality is protected with us with the cap with the county.

 MM: And all all of that information is included on our website on the business enforcement page which is under businesses i believe in the top menu uh you'll see an email there and contact information um and just let's reiterate too that if you're before you go into a business you should be looking for that check mark dated july recommend that you one you can alert the business and say hey um you need to hang this and you could also maybe rethink about going inside there because they may not be um practicing social distancing protocols. uh next question i have a camping trip planned with other members of my family i'm assuming this means extended family yeah uh would that be allowed what about my what about with my church because we'll be outside isn't this safer?

TN: So at this time the state has provided instruction that outdoor gatherings of any kind with any members outside of your household or not to be allowed and. I know this is a point we kind of keep hammering in and it keeps coming up in different spectrum's you know can I do this can i do that you know how is this safe or how is it not but at this time the state has provided guidance that outdoor gatherings or indoor gatherings of any kind are not to occur as we are seeing that gatherings are providing a lot of cases with members outside of your household. And i think it just goes again to the complacency of people not thinking they're sick and thinking because they have you know provided their time at home they would be allowed to do this. So gatherings of any kind we understand you miss your family i miss mine you know it it's not allowed to occur at this time.

MM: Yeah i haven't seen my family in months which is unheard of unheard of. Uh are subcontracting companies required to submit SDP and you may hear this acronym floating around SDP stands for social distancing protocols. Are companies required to submit these to the general contractor?

TN: Yes yes subcontractors are required to submit their social justice protocol to the general contractor as well as other uh independent contractors in other positions in this county like for example hairdressers uh nail salon techs if you're an independent contractor you would be required to generate your own social distancing protocol and to provide it to your employer at that time as well.

MM: Yeah should preschools be following the guidance we have posted for k through 12 on our website.

TN: So this is a question we have been receiving a lot of inquiries about so from our understanding at this point in time preschools should be following our guidance for child care and then anything from k to 12 should be following the guidance we previously we have on our website this may change in the future but at this time if you're a preschool please follow the guidance we have for child care and for those other institutions you're going to need to follow the k through 12 protocols that we have posted on our website.

MM: And you're referring to the directives correct the directives that we have there are 12 now there's a lot there's a lot
TN: Yes we're honing in on a lot of the specifics for some of these industries.

MM: But each of these directives does have their own web page and you can um control f to find um what you're looking for and all of it is on there. Uh how can employees sorry how can employers ensure their employees are social distancing while at the workplace? So going back to the workplace again.

TN: Yeah and it kind of goes back to that initial question is really just if employers are maximizing the amount of staff that are working from home this  will alleviate a lot of that social distancing issue but with those staff that are still on site they still need to make sure they're six feet away  from their other members of that work they need to wear their masks when indoors and outdoors when they're not exercising so all the protocols fall into place again if you're on your lunch you know eat outside or eat in an area where you can maintain that social distancing as well because when you're eating your mass not on and you know we're starting to see we have seen that mass are a big deterrent for spreading COVID-19. so social distancing protocols are really key for preventing the spread of COVID especially when in the workplace.

MM: And going back to the comfort level you know here we're following everything but uh we do get comfortable with each other and so something that we kind of just do out of habit now is this we feel like somebody's getting too close we take a step back and that kind of that indicates to the person that okay you're a little too close and we've noticed that when we do that the other person also takes a step back because we have mentally acknowledged that we are standing too close to each other because we do spend many many hours together it's very easy to get comfortable and so we just have to um make it feel very uncomfortable if we're standing too close together basically.

TN: And you bring up a very good point that i think we've been raising a lot especially with our our email responses and our phone calls is the best way anyone out there in the county in the state in the world can what they can do to best protect themselves is to strictly adhere to the social distancing requirements which means keep your distance from people wear your masks wash your hands frequently because we do get a lot of complaints about people observing other members of the community not following the rules and they're like what can we do about that well you know the best thing you can do is protect yourself maintain those social distancing requirements because that's what you have control over at this time so if you keep doing that you're going to set yourself up for the best possible outcome and scenario for success. mm: do what's within your control

TN: exactly.

MM: There's so much about this that we cannot control and that is part of the reason it's so frustrating uh so one last question here. Does the county process unemployment benefits?

TN: No so i understand there may be some confusion because it is on our resource page the resource section of our business and workplace page we do not process anything for unemployment we're there to help guide you and direct you to where you can if you have any questions about unemployment so any inquiry inquiries that's a hard word for me today any questions you may have about unemployment please direct it to you know EDD

MM: Great and just a few reminders here the business call center and online FAQ email are on our website we do have a business call center dedicated to businesses so the name indicates and we also have a general call center so please visit our website it's constantly being updated with information and then we also have Facebook live in Spanish on Wednesdays at 11am and Facebook live in Vietnamese on Thursday and we do have Facebook pages corresponding to those uh communities. So please find those when you're on social media and i think that's all we have today.

TN: so

MM: Anything to add

TN: uh just that i know we've received a lot of questions as of last Friday when it came to testing. I just want our community to know that we have taken all your concerns and questions regarding if you can get tested by your provider and we're pushing them up to the appropriate people to make sure that your voice is being heard. So, I want to thank everyone who has reached out to us to offer their concerns and their questions just to let you know that we are pushing it up to the appropriate people to make sure that we allow you to get a test.

MM: Yes we do take that feedback seriously and some of the changes you will be seeing in the pop-up sites for instance um come from direct feedback from the community. So thank you for your time today uh thanks for all you're doing to keep our community safe for the latest  information about COVID-19 please visit our website at sccgov.org forward slash coronavirus and thank you for watching please stay safe thank you.