07.03.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
July 3, 2020
Live Stream - Live with the County of Santa Clara
10am PT

Larry Little: Hi everybody, thank you for joining us. I'm Larry Little.

Abigail Avilucea: Hi I'm Abigail Avilucea. I'm a Public Information Officer here at the County's Emergency Operations Center and we're here today to ask everyone and encourage everyone to stay home this Fourth of July weekend. We want to help explain some of the best practices that can keep you and your family safe this weekend.

LL: But first, we want to let you know that safety is a priority for us here at the EOC. We have removed our face coverings so that the ASL Interpreter, American Sign Language Interpreter, as well as everyone, can better understand what we are going to share this morning.

AA: We want to start out bringing you up to date on some of the information we have on our dashboards, which you can also find on our website. As of yesterday, we have a total confirmed cases of 4,750 COVID-19 cases, out to those families affected by this COVID-19 virus.

LL: I think those numbers are much higher than we are used to seeing on the data dashboard. And with this information that we're going to share today, we're hoping to keep COVID-19 transmissions low in the County, especially compared to what we saw on Memorial Day.

Just yesterday, Public Health Officer, Dr. Sara Cody said we cannot let our guard down as we go into the holiday weekend and beyond. Take a look.

[Video of Sara Cody plays]

Sara Cody: Over the last two weeks, we've had fewer cases of COVID-19 per hundred thousand residents than any other county in the Bay Area, and fewer than any other urban region in the state. But even our rates are increasing and our daily case counts today are much higher than they were at any time in April when we all came together to flatten the curve.

We must each take responsibility for protecting ourselves for protecting our families and for protecting our entire community. This virus has proven time and again in communities around the country and around the world that it will come back with a vengeance if you let your guard down. We will not let our guard down here in Santa Clara County.

[Video ends]

LL: Transmissions occur by contact to case or presumed community transmission. So Abby, this means it's probably not a good idea to go to a home gathering or a house party or even a crowded firework show. Those are probably just not good ideas.

How you celebrate the Fourth of July and what people choose to do matter in slowing the spread of COVID-19. Our new cases, just as of yesterday, was 185. individual had contact with 10 people. That gives it⁠—that gets us to 1850. I'm a little nervous with my math here. That gets us to 1850. And just imagine if that 1850 also has contact with 10 people and now our cases are growing quickly here in the county.

Just yesterday, Santa Clara County Board Supervisor President Cindy Chavez said, it's going to take all of us to slow the spread of COVID-19 and that means we must do the right thing this Fourth of July holiday weekend.

[Video of Cindy Chavez plays]

Cindy Chavez: And this weekend is Fourth of July. And if we're not careful, 14 days from now, we're gonna start to see people in our hospitals. But all of us, all of you can do something about that. And what that means is following the rules that Dr. Cody has laid out for us. I want to say just one big thank you to all of you who've been sheltering in place, all of you who've been wearing your masks, and to say to everybody else, join us, because this is the only way we're gonna fight this if we do it together.

[Video ends]

AA: So we want to share with you some best practices to prevent the spread of COVID-19, especially for this weekend. You may have heard all of these before but please remember to practice them and stay home as much as possible. Please wear your masks whenever leaving the house and when you are outside, remember to stay 6 feet apart. Grocery stores, parking lots, sidewalks. All of that matters, inside and outside.

LL: Absolutely. You know I know a lot of people are going to get calls saying, please come over, we're having a barbecue. And I know barbecue and beer they don't taste as good through the phone, when you're looking at it on Zoom. But what you can do is probably fix barbecue and have beer at your house and then your family they⁠—your parents have it at their homes and then you just have a Zoom meeting. And that's one way because we have to slow the spread of COVID-19 here in the County. So what are you planning on⁠—planning on doing? I mean it's so dooming of saying, don't do this what

AA: Don't leave, don't see your friends and family...

Especially a three-day weekend. The summer, the weather is great. I plan on having a backyard barbecue with my husband, who I live with, and Zoom in my parents who are gonna be doing the same at home.

It is sad to not have everyone together in one place, but but now we have all this technology: Zoom, Netflix party, Amazon came out with a watch party. I mean try to use those technologies and⁠—and stay home and stay connected from afar.

LL: I know one thing I think about is what we do now matters later. And I don't know about anybody else, but I don't want to be doing this at Christmastime.

AA: Right.

LL: Also, I'm also having a problem right now. You know, I want to get a haircut, I want to go to a Dodgers game, and as long as we⁠—the cases continue to rise, we cannot do that.

Here are a few headlines from around⁠—well first, we're going to take a look at a tweet from our Governor here. It says, all parking facilities at state beaches in Southern California and the Bay Area will be closed for the upcoming weekend. COVID-19 does not take Fourth of July off. Avoid crowds. Do not gather with people you do not live with. Wear a mask. Physically distance. Be smart. Do your part.

Then we have a tweet here from the city of Pacifica. You know, I fell in love with California because of Pacifica.

AA: The coastline.

LL: Yes, it says, the tweet from the city says, Pacifica beaches and beach parking lots will be closed for the holiday weekend. Folks, COVID-19 spread has not slowed in our area. Please celebrate the holiday safely at home.

And you can see there. Also, we have some headlines from around where Pacifica Beach is closed for the weekend, and it's not only affecting us here in the Bay Area or in California, you can see parks in Texas are being closed too, due to COVID-19. And I believe you have a quote from Dr. Cody to close this out.

AA: Yes definitely. This Fourth of July. the safest way to celebrate is with only the people you live with. We are all in this together, and gathering in groups means COVID-19 spreads in the community. And the more it spreads, the more it endangers older adults and others as higher risk⁠—with higher risk of serious illnesses. This virus spreads far and wide. Please be safe this weekend. Thank you.

LL: Absolutely. As you may know, a new Health Order is set to go into effect July 13th, but it has to be approved by the state first. And so we want to make sure that we're doing the right thing this weekend so the numbers don't rise, because that's not going to be a good look if the Governor is looking at very high numbers. 300 new confirmed cases and we're saying open up the County.

So please, please, please, please we want to open this county up and get things back going and get life back as normal as it can be. If you need more information anything about testing or what's going on here in the county, make sure you log into our websites as well as follow us on social media.

AA: Yes. Have a good Fourth of July.

LL: Thanks for watching.