08.26.2020 COVID-19 Press Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
August 26, 2020
Live Stream - Press Briefing
12:00pm PT

David Campos: Good afternoon my name is David Campos I’m a deputy county executive for the county of Santa Clara and lead public information officer for the county of Santa Clara’s emergency operations center today we will be hearing from first our public health officer Dr. Sara Cody and then from our COVID-19 testing officer Dr. Martin Fenstersheib and these two doctors are here specifically to provide comment on guidance that was issued by the centers for disease control on the issue of testing so with that let me first turn it over to Dr Sara Cody

Dr. Sara Cody: Good morning nice to see everyone I’m Dr. Sara Cody county health officer and I learned yesterday that the centers for disease control had issued revised guidance on their uh testing recommendations for testing since then we've had a number of inquiries so I wanted to come before you today and clarify our county guidelines and our county order regarding testing before I do so I want to say that when I first heard about this change in guidelines I actually didn't believe it for it seemed entirely bizarre in that it undercuts our very basic tenets of how we control an infectious disease testing and having individuals know their status is foundational to our ability to control an infectious disease and certainly our ability to control COVID so let me start with the new guidance and highlight where our local guidance and in fact our local order is different the revised guidance says that someone who has mild symptoms may wish to get a test and a test may be offered our local guidance and our order is quite clear that anyone with any symptoms of COVID should be tested right away this will be particularly important this winter as more respiratory viruses come and circulate it's very important to know whether your symptoms are because of COVID or something else.

number two, the new CDC guidance says that if you've been in close contact with a confirmed case of COVID you do not necessarily need a test this was the part of the guidance that felt frankly most bizarre the truth is that if you've been in contact with someone who is infectious with COVID you absolutely need to get a test and in fact our health officer order requires our health care facilities to test contacts I want to say before I hand this over to Dr. Fenstersheib that testing is our way out of this epidemic since the very beginning testing has been the Achilles heel for our country and for our county in getting us out when you get a test you know your status you know whether you're infectious and you need that information for two reasons one for yourself to know whether you're going to get more ill and to be able to watch your symptoms number two you need to know whether you pose a risk to your family and your friends and your coworkers so that you can tell them whether they need to be tested if everyone knows their status whether they're infectious or not they can take action if you're infectious you isolate if you're a contact you quarantine away from others and that is the way we are going to get ourselves out of this pandemic and return to our lives that is how we are going to be able to open businesses open activities and most importantly that is how we are going to get our children back in the classroom where they can best learn it's through testing it's through knowing your status it's absolutely foundational and so here in our county in the county of Santa Clara we are going to continue to work with all of our healthcare partners to ensure that they offer testing to the groups that need it and we through our county health system are going to continue to offer mass testing at several sites as often and as robustly as we can for as long as it takes thank you

Dr. Martin Fenstersheib: Leading up the testing task force and we have really done I think a tremendous job with our team with the help of those around the county in increasing the capacity of testing in our county we have gone from doing a thousand tests a day to now upwards of six to eight thousand tests a day it's very critical to realize that thirty five to forty percent of people who are infected may be totally asymptomatic meaning without any symptoms and so you wouldn't know that they were infected if we don't test those people who are who are most likely contacts to someone else who was infected if we don't test them we will not know that they were infected if we don't know that they're infected they will then infect others their family their friends their co-workers and that is critical testing is very very important especially the contacts we need to follow the science and that's the science and everyone agrees that has science it has a science background that testing is critical I respect the CDC have always done that through my career however I believe that these changes in the testing guidance have not come from the CDC directly I believe that these te these these changes in the guidance have come from further up the chain in the federal government from the white house and um they are misdirected they are totally misdirected failing to test is not going to end this pandemic failing to test will not make the virus go away lacking a strong testing program I think nationally has been one of the largest failures of our federal government however we will not change our guidance because of this we will continue to have a strong basis in science we will continue to encourage people to be tested so that we can contain this pandemic and so I urge people again if you are symptomatic get tested if you are a contact to anyone get tested and if you are a frontline worker get tested we have plenty of testing sites on our website the fairgrounds has recently been open we have the capacity of testing over a thousand people there a day so people please take advantage of the testing in this community thank you.

DC: Thank you Dr. Cody thank you Dr.  Fenstersheib we're happy to take a couple questions.

Public: A question for Dr. Cody as you know that the San Jose earthquakes are having their first sporting event here in the county later today and then levi’s stadium is going to be hosting football games although without fans both venues without fans can you talk about you know the ability for the county to now allow these types of sporting events?

DC: So, for those on Facebook live they're asking about the you know sporting events a couple of sporting events that are happening in the county Dr. Cody

DSC: Dr. Fenstersheib has been uh I might refer this to Dr. Fenstersheib but he's been working with sports teams to ensure the safety for the teams and for the community and I don't know Dr. Marty if you have any particular comments I don't I don't have any particular comments on on this.

DMF: I could just say a couple of things and again I’ve been in consultation with Dr. Cody the health officer we have been working with the professional teams and realizing the issues of them wanting to play and the need but also realizing the critical nature of making sure that our community stays safe and so in working with the teams they have instituted a great deal of testing for their players and again we insisted that that testing not take away from resources in this community so that testing is is being done through other resources outside our community we have insisted that again any that they follow our guidelines and that if there are any uh any players who test positive again that they are quarantined for the necessary time as is our recommendation so we have as I said been working with the sports teams and they have been very compliant with us and we are keeping in contact with them.

Public: Doctor is that some indication that things are loosening up a little bit in this county?

DMF: No not at all things are not loosening up we are being as vigilant as always but again um insisting again in working with the sports teams that none of the players will pose any risk to any of the community members so that they will stay contained within their facility and not face have any facing out to our community or any exposure in our community so that was our number one requirement that that we protect our community from any any further exposure

DC: Thank you any other questions great thank you very much this concludes our press availability and we're happy to I’m happy to take any questions in Spanish after this.