07.24.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
July 24, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
10:00am PT

Carlos Vera: good morning everyone and welcome my name is carlos.

Daniela Margarito: My name is Daniela.

Lizeth Mata: My name is Lizeth and today our focus is living through COVID-19. our generation focus on safety and better practices as you may know confirmed COVID-19 cases are on the rise in santa clara county take a look at the update from our data dashboard of as of yesterday there is 8533 cases our thoughts are with the families who have lost loved ones due to COVID-19.

DM: Lizeth as you can see on the dashboard the 2229 age group make up the majority of COVID-19 cases here in the county

CV: And today we will spend a few moments having a conversation about topics relating to our experiences during this COVID-19 time um also sharing best practices to stay protected during COVID-19 um during this pandemic for our generation and even if you're not from our generation which is generation z you probably know somebody that is and you could use some of this information that you get from us and provide it to them which could be very resourceful.

LM: first we want to let you know that prior to our broadcast we removed our face covering so everyone including our american sign language interpreters can clearly understand the information we will be sharing this morning i want to ask you how are you staying sane during COVID-19 whether that be Daniella or Carlos who wants to answer that first?

DM: Carlos you can go first.

CV: Okay um so for me staying sane during COVID-19 I you know i learn new things i pick up different things that i like whether that may be coding playing an instrument playing music i think that although we're in this difficult situation that we find ourselves in and it's you know one in a hundred year event and i think it's very important that we take this time to learn new things so that we're able to find new things that we enjoy in life um there are some things that were taken from us not being able to hang out with some of our friends our family but i think always learning new things always finding new things that you enjoy is something that will be helpful so for me i go home i take a shower i eat i play some games on my phone i watch youtube and that's that's pretty much kind of what i do from day to day.

DM: Um for me personally the way i've been staying sane during this pandemic is usually by hanging out with my siblings and also watching videos on youtube and watching new tv shows or movies i've also been trying to find classes that i need to take for my major because i'm still going to college and that's one of the ways that i've been staying sane

LM: Great not only are we having to stay sane we now have to wear our face covering and masks how do you feel about wearing them

CV: Um so i know that wearing face coverings and wearing face masks they're not always the the funnest of things we know that it could be uncomfortable it can get hot but at the same time we know that this protects me this protects other people you know i know that when i was doing research at Stanford about PPE and face coverings some people weren't wearing the their PPE and that put them out of harm so i know how important this is i know that i need to do my part by wearing a face covering and you know protect those around me whether it's my co-workers my family or you know my roommates or other people in the community so.

DM: Um so for me um wearing masks sometimes it does get um uncomfortable sometimes especially when it's very hot so then it starts to get very humid with the mask but i just remember that i have to be safe especially since i do go home to my siblings and my mother and i know that in order in order for me to be healthy it's going to help them later on and i think it's very important to be wearing masks because it does minimize our risk and also it slows down the spread of the coronavirus and some some ways that i've been remembering to take my mask when i leave home is usually by um putting a reminder on my phone or sometimes my siblings or my mom reminds me to take my mask when i leave.

CV: Yeah and another thing about that you know i always have extra face coverings whether it's in my car my apartment you know always having a spare one just in case you know it gets soiled or you lose it you know anything can happen with the face covering um so you know there's kind of this misconception that youth aren't as impacted by COVID-19 but you know we've seen that over the last week or so COVID-19 cases specifically among young adults has been increasing far greater than those and other age groups especially you know the rate at which this grows so um this has kind of created this myth about COVID have you seen anyone your age not following social distancing guidelines or not following the public health order um and what is your message to them?

LM: Yeah definitely yeah definitely um there's i've seen a lot of um people my age not following the rules still partying um and it has to do a lot with the myth that i started off with the youth not being that they were not gonna get the COVID or they were less likely to so i feel like because of that myth a lot of us youngsters are you know just going up about our lives thinking you know we might fight this off but i know recently I seen a case of a 21 year old who actually passed away due to COVID-19 and it's actually very important for us to make sure that as youth we keep each other safe as well as our families because maybe we might be able to fight this off but maybe our parents aren't we have a lot of us have parents who are elderly who have diabetes or any other um um how would you say that um  another like like they could like another i don't have any condition correct yes sorry umand it's very important for us to keep them safe as well there's also children at home in many of our homes and we have to make sure that if we're going out we have to take our masks um that we're not just thinking about ourselves and having fun i know we're young and we want to live the best of our lives right now because we're only going to be young for a period of time and i understand that like there's ways that we can have fun but we also have to make sure that you know we're also thinking about others.

CV: Yes

DM: Um so i can relate to what lizeth said um i've definitely seen some young people not wearing face covering or not social distancing and it definitely puts them at risk especially when they go home to their parents or to their siblings because they can although sometimes young people may not they may not present the symptoms of COVID they can actually still carry the virus and then spread it to their family  members and my message to them would be to think about others and also think about themselves especially since i know sometimes we may think that we may be able to recover from COVID-19 but that's not always the case i've seen some young people who have been who did get COVID-19 and they were healthy and they were very young but they didn't survive.

CV: Yes and i think another thing to really take this especially for all the young adults that you know health-wise it may not impact us because we're healthy it does impact us but not as at a certain level but if you have a chronic condition you know if you're a smoker if you have diabetes other things that impacts you and you end up in the hospital it's not just the health concerns you get out you have a financial burden because you have that medical bill that you have to pay

DM: I would also like to point out that it's not um just smoking i think also it has to do with um vaping or like the consumption of alcoholic beverages that can also increase your risk of getting COVID and so hanging out with friends right now is off the table and sometimes we want to hang out with our friends so how is this affecting you mentally because of distance we've had to keep to keep because of COVID i mean we cannot hang out with our friends or really we have to limit um our interactions with others so how have you how has this affected you.

CV: Um so for me i guess i was planning to have a summer summer vacation that completely was thrown out the window so i'm kind of bummed out on that but I think at the same time it gives me a time to you know develop new things new skill sets prepare for college and as for hanging out with friends I know i can't do that but you know that we're at a digital age where we can communicate with our friends family through our phones they're just one click away so you know sometimes i'll hop on go on twitch and see my friends stream right and I just type in the chat and you know it's kind of fun for me because i'm not very good at video games so watching somebody that's actually good at video games and you know kind of makes me feel that i'm actually winning but but they're winning so

LM: Yeah um yeah definitely it's it's hard um especially because i love socializing so it's very it was it was a bit difficult for me to try to switch from you know in person to digital and it was at first it was like a bummer you know I know a lot of us two were um at least my friends who were graduating they were super excited to you know graduate and just being that person and that all changed it was kind of discouraging for many of us it was a place of how long is this gonna last um so it was a lot of that and um how carlos had said you know we're in a digital age so that helped a lot you know communicating with their friends finding new ways to hang out virtually i know right now you know we have the parks that are open the hike the hike and the trails that are open so you know if you do go out with your friends you know make sure that you stay within those friends don't try to like go out to more or anything and if you go out to the trails or to the parks make sure that you have your mask and limit those interactions as much as you can sometimes you know it's really hard not to um to not socialize i think that's just very difficult i think us as humans we want to socialize and it's very difficult but we have to take those precautions if we are going to go out to the park to the beach you know and if there's people if there's too many people you know maybe you shouldn't be there maybe you should um look for somewhere else where it's a little bit more isolated you know but emphasis on the mass that's going to help us a lot and protect ourselves and protect others

DM: So what are some changes that you've had made in your day-to-day life?

CV: You want to start with this one

LM: Yeah Definitely um um some changes was going I like um working out so that was a bit difficult at first because I was like I don't want to work at home I kind of you know you kind of like you're like I could stay in bed a little bit longer so I kind of had to put my mindset like now I have to work out here at home I have my backyard so that kind of thing like my regular daily basis had to completely change because it all had to be at home at first you know everything was still is at home but everything had to just be focused like okay maybe today you know the backyard is my gym okay maybe maybe i want to do it in the in the garage you know i had i had to switch it up so it was a lot of that um and just trying to see what else i can  do at home I started since i go to school you know I can't really cook at home so i started to cook a lot more bake to do more things i was actually talking to my friends and i was letting them know you know i actually just got bored of like you know the same food sometimes and i was like you know what i'm gonna add a little something to it see see how that tastes you know sometimes it works sometimes it didn't and i'm like you know what i'm working i'm i'm experiencing with my spices you know and seeing what else i can create so just you know i had to do a lot of that for my daily daily um life in school had to be at home so, it was just how to not feel like it's a drag being at home so, you had to find that you know new new ways to not feel like oh it's such a drag you know yeah.

CV: Yeah and I completely agree with um you know having to exercise at home I think you know I can't I can't go home and pick up I could you know go for a jog I could you know do some abs ab exercises at home I could do some push-ups um you know I’ve obviously gained some COVID weight um people might not notice if i I definitely have noticed it um and i think we're always trying we're at this stage some of us in our lives where we have to you know develop new skills and like i said earlier um and i think if we're doing something to improve ourselves and to to do sorry develop these new skill sets we feel like we're being productive we're we feel like we're advancing in our careers although we're not at a job not at an internship because maybe some of those internships you know kind of went away from COVID um which kind of goes back to which goes on to our next topic you know jobs during this day and age especially for young adults that just recently graduated from college and also you know school and how that's going to be looking um for some of us whether that may be you know our online education um maybe a hybrid style so that has definitely changed so how does it impact you academically and what have you done to prepare during COVID?

DM: Um so it was very unexpected when our school suddenly had to change from in person teaching to online and it definitely impacted how I was learning the new stuff in class and i think right now i'm kind of hesitant about going back to school because it is going to be a lot trying to do everything online especially since i have a lot of younger siblings who also might be doing school online and so it's going to be a challenge having to supervise them and have them doing their homework at the same time that i'm going to be listening um to lectures by my professors and so then that's one way that covid has impacted me academically but especially since i've decided to change my major and a lot of my classes are going to be math classes and science classes and coding and i think that type of topics are much more difficult to learn online so yeah that's definitely um some of the reasons why i've been hesitant about going back to school.

LM: Yeah definitely i can agree with that I actually have never took an online class and after we went into quarantine i had to find a way how to do that because that was the most hardest thing for me still is so for this fall semester i'm just trying to figure out how i'm going to keep myself focused in school and how to um stretch out my days as well like when am i gonna do um my homework if you know i'm at home and i have to help out with something so it's very it's been actually very difficult and i'm pretty sure i'm not the only ones many of college students high school students just schools like students in general it's been a difficult time to kind of not feel discouraged to like drop out or just take the semester off because we're not sure how the teachers are gonna are gonna take over the online class I  know it's also difficult for the professors and the teachers um some of them are not used to some of them teach the old-fashioned way so they have to learn you know how to work a computer and i think just right now it's very difficult for us as students to actually feel like like we're focused in school focused on our subjects and how daniel says she's switching a major that's a whole other process that you have to go through when you're doing that so i think just school in general is has is going to be a little bit hard but i know that with the the right steps and preparing ourselves um would definitely help a lot more coming into this fall semester than it was when it was just so abruptly like you're going into online school so that was for me like the most hardest thing but right now that i know that i'm gonna be doing online i feel like i can prepare myself more so i think also my tip to anybody who's in the same page as me who's never done online classes is you know just prepare yourself try to talk to your teachers in advance  how they can help you you know also transition or if also they're transitioning ask them what has helped them as well or your peers your um your what it's called  if you have siblings i know have siblings as well um just be a hand to them and you know i'm sure that they're gonna lend you a hand or tips  as well

CV: Yeah um i i completely agree with both of you you know it's definitely difficult changing from in person to  online i know i absolutely love in person class just because you know i get to interact with my peers with my professors and you know during this kind of towards the end of the semester um i i was interacting with some of my former professors and you know it was difficult for them as well um and kind of getting students to kind of participate and you know i mean that's a different story but um i i personally love in-person learning and you know uh for me starting my my master's at Berkeley i know that that's going to be a completely different style of learning um for me you know getting assimilated to a different university different teaching style different professors um it's definitely going to be difficult and so you know there's something else you know like i mentioned work for some of us that just graduated you know going out to the workforce we're not just competing with  other people that just graduated we're also competing with people that actually lost their job as a result of COVID-19. um so maybe discuss you know how there's fewer jobs  to some of your friends right now and kind of how they're feeling and you know what what your advice is to them?

LM: Yeah definitely i think even like um for jobs has been difficult um there's a few friends who've applied to many places you know but as we all know there's limited available positions during this time especially because we have the social distance we have to make sure that everything is good so right now it's very difficult i know that um after i finish my internship i'm going to try to see if i can also find a job and how you said you know a lot of people are coming they're graduating they want to find a job and that's super difficult i know it is already difficult when the pandemic wasn't happening so it's definitely even extra you know like it's ten times more difficult to find a job as a graduate student um so i honestly don't know how um they have cope with it you know because i'm still i haven't graduated and i'm glad that you said that you know you're competing and that's good to know because i know a lot of the youth who are watching they're like you know i feel the same I don't know what to do but just don't get discouraged you know just because this is happening continue continue to practice um your skills at home you know if you're not good at an internship practice be like you know what i'm gonna present myself i'm gonna build this portfolio for myself and you know as soon as i get the chance go for it don't um try to limit your your options if right now you know you have to work at a grocery store or anything like that take it and take the opportunity to be like oh you know um after this i'm gonna go even to get that that job that i actuallyreally wanted because i know you know  this is going to be a temporary thing we're not sure you know how long but it is temporary it's not forever as long as we follow you know the guidelines and everything like that  um we're gonna get back to it so right now with jobs it's very difficult i know for me it's just you know it sometimes can get discouraging but we have to keep pushing definitely

DM: Um i definitely have to agree agree with Lizeth I think right now a lot of people my age find it very difficult to find a job especially since we're competing with a lot of people so like my mom right now she's um having trouble finding a job so basically like my people my age people that are the same age as my mother and people that are the same age as my brother who just turned 16 and so like it's like three of us um that are trying to find jobs so basically it's like um we're competing with people of the same age as us and i think especially right now it's even more difficult because of the pandemic and right now currently i'm lucky to have a job with being a part of the new americans fellowship program but after this it's um there's uncertainty about where i could um apply and that's also another reason why i've been hesitant about continuing my education because i also have to provide for my family with because my mom she also um lost her job so yeah that's something that affects us all.

CV: Yeah it's it's a difficult time and you know it's important that during this difficult time that we're waiting for a job to pop up we develop new skill sets you know contactprofessors former professors reach out  to them ask them hey is there do you know somebody that's hiring do you know somebody that needs volunteers because sometimes these fall volunteering or internships they turn into jobs so you know reach out to your connections you know reach out to maybe a career center um and you know find find new things that you could do? Um so we definitely want to see the confirmed cases of COVID-19 numbers fall for age group and everyone else in the county so we want so i want you guys to share a few best practices to um limit the spread of COVID.

CV: So number one best practice don't leave your house it's plain and simple right you can't get exposed if you don't leave the house um but other than that obviously you know social distancing we we know for a fact you know if you social distance your exposure level decreases your face mass your exposure level decreases if you wipe down surfaces that may have you know these these these microbes that kind of spewed out from somebody's mouth and kind of fell and settled onto a surface I touch it you know I touch my face you know don't do that so i think that's kind of a best practice if you don't need to go to the grocery store 20 times a week just don't do it you know some of  us may go to the grocery store say oh i forget i forgot to get grab this do i really need to grab that go back just to that one item probably not but you know just reduce your exposure as much as possible take the trips that you need to take and don't do anything else that puts you  at a greater risk i know it's summer we want to hang out we want to go to the beach I mean I haven't gone to the beach in such a long time and you know I could just smell like the fresh salt Water and you know I miss it but I know that I have a social responsibility to do um I need to stay home and protect my friends my family my coworkers you know if I come here and expose somebody at work you know that I don't know how severe that could get they could end up at the hospital or maybe they don't and they're completely fine but I don't want to take that risk so that's that's what I would say is  kind of the best practices.

LM: Yeah and definitely and if you do um if you are an essential worker or um you go out to get groceries make sure that you also go get tested um if you have insurance  make an appointment with your doctor if you don't there are available free sites for you you can always um go to them and make sure you you go early as well because due to the high COVID cases there is a longer wait time but get tested if you can't do it once a week you know make sure you do it at  least wice a month or as as much as you can if we would say but if you don't have time once a month would be would be best we also want to make sure that we're staying safe and we take those precautions before you know you go out to maybe if you're going to go see your family and you've been out get tested make sure that you're okay first before you go and bring in  something to the house.

DM: I would also like to add on especially some young people who aren't able to drive right now they try to get around with um either like Uber or  Lyft or some other type of transportation like the VTA buses so what I would suggest is if you are taking like a lift or an Uber is to um try to sit in the back and like opposite of the person and then just kindly ask your driver to roll down the windows and make sure that your driver and  you yourself are wearing masks um this will um this will put you at a lower risk especially since the air is going to be circulating in the car and if you are at the VTA try not to touch a lot of surfaces especially since you don't know who's been there before and try to wear your mask especially try  to wear your mask when you are waiting for the bus at the bus stop because i know that a lot of people they're waiting at the bus stop but they don't have their face covering on  before they get on the bus so um definitely try to remember to wear the face mask when you are waiting at the bus stop  and also when you are on an uber or lyft.

LM: Yes and just want to thank everyone for joining us today for the latest information on COVID-19 and testing please visit the county's COVID-19 website at www.sccgov.org coronavirus thank you for watching and please continue to stay safe and have a great day.