11.04.2020 FB Live Briefing

The County of Santa Clara
November 4, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
10:00 AM

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Indira Fonseca: hi good morning my name is Indira Fonseca, public information officer here in Santa Clara County. please note that we will be removing our face coverings to help under us others understand us better. today we will be discussing gatherings given that upcoming holiday seasons will be happening soon and we are in a post-election period please note that we want our community to practice safely when gathering with others and we want to provide all the tools necessary in order to do so and prevent any COVID-19 transmission and also provide and help us move forward to the next tier here in Santa Clara County. this morning we want to spend some time discussing keeping our community safe with small and large gatherings and also share additional information with our gatherings directive also please note that this information will be available on our website Santa Clara County COVID-19 website we know that there are some questions when it comes to risk associated with face coverings we have an expert with us, Dr George Han, our Deputy Health Officer for Santa Clara County Health Public Health Department. thank you Dr. Han, for joining us.

Dr. George Han: my pleasure

IF: do you mind sharing a little bit about how you support here in santa clara county and how you're supporting us now with our COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Han: well i'm the Deputy Health Officer for the Santa Clara County Public Health Department and what that means is i've been working on the COVID-19 pandemic response since January and currently i am the operations chief for the Department Operations Center which is the main unit in our county that is responding to the pandemic from a public health perspective.

IF: thank you so much and we really appreciate everything that you do here in Santa Clara County and helping us move on to the next year and also prevent any any cases from happening. so thank you just a question um what do you what do you plan on doing differently this holiday season?

Dr. Han: yeah i was thinking about that uh recently as i know many uh folks are what are we going to do? and i think uh what we'll be doing is a lot of phone calls and sort of video chats with relatives from around the around the country really and we'll be doing that for for the holidays. you know it does you know i know a lot of people are thinking about should they gather and should they travel, and and the thing with gathering and traveling is they do have some risk because we know that kova 19 is on the upswing in many parts of the country and even here in Santa Clara County in the bay area it's it might be trending up a little bit at this point and what we're trying to do is is do our best to keep it as low as possible but we know that we're not an island we know that we're connected to the rest of the state and rest of the country and they're experiencing large outbreaks, and so we we need to be thoughtful i think about you know the risks that we take and like, what what can we do really to minimize the risk as much as possible? i'm thinking for example you know if traditionally the week around thanksgiving is a really heavy flying week lots of people flying everywhere, and so if you imagine a lot of people going to the airport sitting in the terminals, being on the planes. it may not be the safest thing to do so you know the way to reduce the risk might be this year to travel by private car, um or like i s you know what i'm doing is is to not travel at all and just have sort of virtual gatherings. um you know with the understanding that the reason we're doing this uh is to protect each other that's right um you know i care about my my family and friends health and they care about my health and and so the best thing to do is to you know stay distant and connect um virtually if possible. um but yeah that's that's my plan.

IF: thank you thank you know wonderful and i plan to do the same um definitely staying home uh making cookies. you know with my sons and just you know having pajama parties within our home uh so it'll be a party of four um in our household. uh but definitely like trying to maximize um family time uh whether it's virtually or just with the individuals in your household. i think that's that's what's safest right and hopefully you know this time next year we'll be able to hug our loved one absolutely um but that being said uh we also do want to remind um our our community that gatherings at this time are allowed for allowed for the purposes of cultural uh political or religious events such as weddings and funerals um in addition as of October 9th the state has guidance has guidelines for private outdoor gatherings of up to three separate households of course these gatherings must comply with our gatherings directive here in Santa Clara County as well as our social just submit a social distancing protocol and the guidelines um to with that being said Dr Han do you mind sharing about the risk of attending a gathering?

Dr. Han: definitely. so you know there are the gatherings that are sort of more formal right like the like as is mentioned weddings and funerals and and that kind of thing um and and when when that kind of gathering happens uh definitely there needs to be um the host uh needs to set out expectations in advance um so that people know that they'll be wearing masks the whole time, that they'll be distanced the whole time um that they're you know going to keep it short, because the the shorter the event uh the the better the safer um and then you know limit the number of people because the fewer number of people, again the safer and so i know that folks have been creative about coming up with other solutions like maybe having a small group at the actual venue but then like stream it live for other folks um to to view at home. so there's those kind of gatherings and then they're they're the more informal gatherings you know dinner parties or backyard barbecues, and um and you know anytime you have a gathering with someone from uh outside of your household, there is some risk of covid uh and the reason for that is because covet is widespread throughout our country, and and including in the bay area, and so um because of that um we need to be thoughtful about what kind of um measures we take uh to to reduce our risk. and i think them you know the important thing to understand about these safety measures is that no single one of them works 100  percent, but when you put them in combination and you layer them on top of each other that becomes more and more safe. and so what i try to tell everyone is do as many of these safety precautions as you can, because the more you do the safer you're uh you're going to be um that's.

IF: right and some of the precautions that we were talking about earlier is wearing your face coverings and just as a brief reminder we do have updated guidance it must be a two minimum of two layers, material fits snugly around the nose mouth and chin area, and hooking around the ears and or behind the head and do not wear face coverings below your nose or under your chin. also please note that there are some face coverings that are not recommended and those would be the neck gaitors, as we spoke about earlier the ones that go up to the neck as well as the face coverings with a valve those are not recommended at the moment. um but that being said Dr. Han um is someone that attends a gathering with the so we talked about a little bit so say you wear a face covering you're going to go uh to a gathering how much protection does that offer you.

Dr. Han: so if uh the the the face covering offers some protection it's not 100  percent, as i mentioned so it helps protect you from breathing any virus out and spreading it to others, and it does it also helps to a certain extent if there's virus in the air from others uh from from you getting as big of a dose of virus and so that's very helpful because um the more virus that you can block from your your your body from entering your body the better because your body has a better chance of fighting it off, and you might not get as sick if you're wearing a mask and exposed than if you never wore a facial covering, so definitely keep a face covering on at all times as much as possible. you know obviously when you're eating or drinking you have to take it off, but then you know as soon as you're done put it back on and i think it's really important to remember that um you should still keep as distant as possible um you know six feet is the number that we get but really you know as much as you can even, more than six feet is even better uh and the reason for that is because um when you're in an for example let's say you're indoors which is a risky place to be if there's no ventilation, then what happens is the virus just keeps building up inside in the indoor air, and then you know the next person in the room, even if they're more than six feet away, can breathe it in and so that's why we always say um outdoors is safer than indoors and but if you are indoors you know open all the windows open the doors you know get some ventilation in there IF: um shortening the time that you're indoors. Dr. Han:  shorten the time that you're indoors and so you know have have your event outside, but you know even if you're outside, wear your mask where uh keep distant and ... IF: Practice good hygiene Dr. Han: one of the things that that people do, when they gather is they'll like gather in the kitchen. even if the event is outside, they'll come back into the kitchen to prepare food or things, and and that's where we want to avoid that as well if you can you know like have maybe only the host is in the kitchen and then like brings out the food or brings out the drinks, and and limit the people who are coming in like to use the restroom let's say.

IF: right and and how you mentioned earlier um just you know protecting our loved ones protecting ourselves we have tools in place that we can utilize you know when attending these gatherings but also keeping in mind that you know and there are other options we can um instead of having gatherings having like you said a virtual event um which is you know now technology is better so we can have different backgrounds you can you know facetime your family or zoom your family while in Paris you know, with a little backdrop. so um people have been getting very creative so we definitely want to encourage that um but yes definitely if you are attending a face covering uh Dr. Han provided excellent guidance um in addition to that under the current order uh the county allows up to uh 200 individuals at an outdoor gathering but uh just because it's allowed, is it safe?

Dr. Han: yeah i think those are really specific um kind of guidelines that you know are kind of modeled over the state. after the states um what the state is doing um i think that uh you know the more that you can avoid large gatherings, the better and that you know you kind of have to make your own decision, and i think it's very true what our health officer Dr. Cody has said many times which is just because it's allowed doesn't mean it's safe

IF: or recommended.

Dr. Han: or recommended absolutely and so you got to like think about you know is there enough distances between everyone is everyone going to be wearing a mask um is it going to be outside so all those things are things that you have to keep in mind when you make those kinds of decisions

IF: great thank you um and also talk about a little bit about testing so um when requesting um to when when should people get tested um before uh attending a gathering? after attending a gathering?

Dr. Han: year yeah well in general if um if you're kind of not staying at home it's good to get tested regularly um for example at least once a month if you're an essential worker let's say um and and you know perhaps up to every once every couple of weeks depending on the nature of your job and and the interactions that you're having uh if you're you know if you do attend a gathering and you're concerned that you may have been exposed or that there you know that distancing wasn't practiced or face coverings weren't used um you know you may want to get tested after attending the gathering, maybe a few days or you know up to five days six days after the gathering um but you do want to watch yourself for symptoms for the whole 14 days after the gathering, because you could develop COVID at any time within the 14 days after being exposed one of the things that i can't emphasize enough, is that because there's COVID everywhere in our community any one of us could have it at any time and not know it yet right and the reason for that is some people get infected and never get symptoms but they can still spread it to other people other people do get symptoms, but they were actually contagious in the two days before, their symptoms started and so you know that's why it's safer even though like you might be feeling fine but you could be carrying the virus you don't know and that's why it's safest to sort of practice all the measures that we were talking about, which include the face coverings and the distancing, and being outside as much as possible.

IF: wonderful we also talked a little bit about the long-term effects. there's some things that we know COVID is fairly new and there's a lot of things that we're learning so do you mind sharing a little bit about the long-term effect that may possibly happen?

Dr. Han: i think it's important for people to know that um it's a COVID is not just a virus that you get and then get over you know, for some people it looks like they get uh covet and they never recover back to their their normal healthy self that they were before they got COVID, um and so yeah unfortunately you know some people actually die from covet and we definitely are doing our best to avoid that but then even the people who survive some of them actually have have longer courses of illness. and what's concerning to us is that because this is a totally new virus, we are not yet sure what the we don't yet know what the long-term health effects of having the infection might be you might have gotten sick for a week and then you know seem to have recovered but who knows what kind of long-term health effects might be left behind, because the virus has only been around for less than a year, and so it takes time for us to find out what kind of effects might might occur later. so better to be safe than sorry. you know we want to do our best to avoid getting the virus and avoid passing it on to our friends and loved ones and co-workers

IF: thank you. thank you, Dr. Han that's all very helpful information. um thank you for taking the time today Dr. Han. we thank you here in Santa Clara County from our communities for everything that you've been doing. um also just a brief reminder we do have Facebook Live in English and Spanish Wednesday and Friday and also live in Vietnamese at on Thursdays, so make sure to tune in and also as a reminder for our community here in Santa Clara County, if you're gathering outdoors, outdoors is safer than indoors, wear a face covering, practice good hygiene, social increase social distancing, and get tested at sccfreetest.org sccfreetest.org and on behalf of Santa Clara County, we want to thank you uh for your continued efforts um in minimizing the spread of COVID-19.

Dr. Han: and i'll just mention one one last thing, which is you know we've been talking about a lot of these messages for some time and it can get you know a lot of us are kind of tired of doing doing these things and that's totally understandable, but it's important to know that the virus is still in our community, and so we can't let our guard down. uh one of the things that i've i've done is actually taken a look at um some of the the our cases of COVID in our county and i found out that you know the team found out that um the reason a lot of folks get sick or got infected was because they left their guard down you know they they were around friends or family and then they didn't wear a mask they went to a gathering um they didn't you know practice all the different things that we've been talking about to protect yourself and so um you know it's it's you know you might get lucky once or twice but like you know it's a little bit you know rather than depending on luck, um it's it's better if you can you know try to as much as possible consistently practice uh the combination of as many of the different safety measures as you can.

IF: thank you. thank you, so much Dr. Han thank you for joining us um you heard it um if this is what you know straight from our uh doctors here in santa clara county um these are the best guidelines these are the tools that we're presenting to you to again keep yourself and your family members safe in your household in our community as a whole. thank you! Dr. Han: thanks

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