04.20.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
April 20, 2020
Live Stream - Live with the County of Santa Clara
10am PT


Hilary Armstrong: Good morning, my name is Hilary Armstrong and I'm a Public Information Officer with the County of Santa Clara and I'm here with Marianna Moles, who's also a Public Information Officer.

We wanted to let you know that today there is some essential roadwork happening right outside of our studios so if you hear this soothing sound of jack hammers in the background we apologize and just wanted to acknowledge that.

Today, we also wanted to acknowledge that we removed our face coverings for this segment. This allows our American Sign Language interpreter to better understand what we are saying but please note that we will be putting those face coverings right back on when this segment is finished. Another announcement for you all is that we are moving our Facebook live schedule to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 10:00 a.m. starting this week. So, our next Facebook live session will be this coming Wednesday. This is to allow for our public information team to focus on critical, mission-critical Emergency Operations Center activities but still keep you all informed and as up to date as possible.

You may have noticed that our COVID-19 case dashboards were not updated over the weekend. This was due to a data update in the state's reportable disease information exchange and we will be updating that dashboard later today with the current numbers. So, I'm going to turn it over to Marianna

Marianna Moles: Thanks Hilary.

So, today we are gonna be talking about social distancing and what that means. Because there does seem to be some confusion about what it means to social distance away from people who are not in your household, in other words, people who don't live with you. We can see the 101 and there are way too many cars on there and unless a lot more people became essential workers, you all are bending the rules a little bit. So, for the next couple minutes, Hillary and I are gonna demonstrate, in a very cheesy way, what it means is socially distance properly.

So, for this segment, just a couple minutes, Hilary is no longer my colleague. She represents my, so I live alone, my sister, my parents, my best friend from college that I haven't seen.  So, given that Hilary, I think you're a little too close.

HA: Okay, I'm gonna move over. How's this?

MM: Yeah, I think you'll need to

HA: Alright, I'm movin, I'm movin.

MM: Maybe just leave. Just leave, yeah leave the building. Yeah that's perfect

HA: Okay, maybe I'll just call you.

MM: Yeah, totally call me. Hey Hilary, what's up? I'm so glad you're sheltering at home in your own home.

HA: Yeah, everything is good. We're surviving.

MM: Yeah see, oh yeah. So, because if you're not living with somebody you really shouldn't be interacting with them. That is what social distancing is.

HA: And so today we wanted to talk a little bit about how we are staying connected and acknowledge the very real sense that this is hard. We have different situations at home like Mariana mentioned she lists she lives alone. I live with my family um and I will say my five-year-old no fan of video chat. She
treats it as if she's being interrogated which makes it very difficult to maintain those connections with her grandparents and with our friends and family. And you know I haven' t seen my parents since early February. I really, really miss them it's been hard not to see them especially during this time that is so difficult for all of us.

So, we acknowledge that it's super, super hard but we also implore you to keep abiding by the Public Health Officer orders.

MM: Yes, it's been very difficult. It's very stressful especially if you live alone and I have a lot of friends who do live alone and that's just the reality of it. I haven't seen my family in months and but we are staying connected over video chat and over the phone. I called my aunt the other day and I've never talked with her on the phone before. So, there are silver linings to this right but it's a huge adjustment
and we really recognize that.

So, another thing we do want to bring up is the grocery store has suddenly become the hot spot in town. So, just because there's a line outside doesn't mean that's where you want to be. In fact, if you see a line outside you might think to yourself, do I really need to go to the grocery store right now? Because we, Hillary and I, are making huge adjustments and how often we're going to the grocery store. We are improvising on recipes, we are using what we have because we're really trying to go as few times as we can.  I used to go to the grocery store every other day, maybe every other few days, and I'm going, you know, trying to go once a month. Only go if you need to go.

HA: Yeah, and I think, you know, I think it's really every trip for me, I think about which essential workers out there are putting themselves out there for us to make sure that we still have the food we need on the table and that we can continue our lives. And so, I try to minimize as much as possible even with a
very voracious five-year-old appetite. We've been trying to limit our trips to one time per week of course we're wearing our face coverings.  We're only sending one member of the household not our entire family as much as my five-year-old would love to get out of the house with me. And I mean following all of the social distancing protocols when we're in the store.

So, we just want to remind you all this is imperative to protecting the health of our community and the health of our essential frontline workers.

MM: And it's really a selfless thing that we're all doing right because it is very difficult and we are having to make sacrifices but it's going to be worth it in the long haul, in the long term. That's just what we have to do right now.

HA: And six feet is a minimum. So, I think some people think okay great I've measured out my six feet. I've got you know six feet between Marianna and me we're good to go. And really that's the bare minimum. We really encourage you when you are out getting exercise, first of all, make sure that you're not crowding a space with that exercise and second of all make sure to make room for others who
are passing you on the sidewalk or on the path. And again, really six feet is the minimum and staying home and inside should be the norm besides kind of those necessary trips.

MM: The six feet is for when you go to the grocery store or you go to get medications it's not for having happy hours in your front yard or you know visiting your sister and her kids and their driveway.  You know, the six feet is for when you have to go out for essential activities. It's not how we socialize nowadays. How we socialize nowadays is virtually, and on the phone, and over social media and hopefully you're able to make those adjustments.

HA: Yeah, basically if you have to shout to have a conversation, then you're at the right distance.

MM: You're doing it correctly.

HA: So, it's really about minimizing contacts and you know even though that you know drive way happy hour where everyone's six feet apart might seem harmless, you are still potentially exposing your friends and yourselves and you're spending more time together thereby increasing chances so really the intent of this order is to minimize contact.

MM: And we know now that at least 25% of people do not have symptoms while they are infectious. So that is a lot of people walking around thinking that they're not spreading anything when potentially they could be and so that is another Public Health science-based reason to not be socializing in each other's front yards, not to be talking to your neighbor over the hedge. You know you should be calling on the phone.

HA: So, we understand that this is harder for some than others. So, we understand that you know some folks live with multiple generations in a small space. We understand that other folks do not have a home or a house and that this is difficult for them. We also, you know, on that note have issued some guidance on our learn what to do section of our webpage for folks who live in apartment complexes or areas that are more densely populated to understand how to minimize risks and as you know from our
other media and social media channels we are making Herculean efforts to make sure we have shelter and for vulnerable folks in our unhoused population as well. So, you can learn more about those efforts on our website and social media channels.

We also want to acknowledge that many essential workers, retail workers, other essential workers health
care workers have to leave their homes to work every day and this is why the rest of us need to be doing everything we can.

MM: So important. Yeah, like I said before this is a selfless thing but it's also an evidence-based practice that we know works and so when you go out just think about the retail workers and the construction workers and anybody else who is out there for essential reasons that you could potentially be exposing
them because you're bored at home and you like I'm gonna go to the grocery store. So really keep that in mind that's what I keep in mind before I go to the grocery store or do anything that's essential.

HA: Thank you for your time today. We know this is hard, we know that it's a huge hardship for you and your families, and we know that it's hard to stay connected when being connected is important now more than ever and we're here to hear those concerns but we're here to tell you that the best way to slow the spread and save lives is to stay home and only make essential trips and to minimize those essential trips out of your house.

MM: And take pride knowing that your actions of staying at home are saving thousands of lives. It really is. So, thanks for being with us today.

HA: And if you have any questions about what you can do in specific circumstances again you can head to our website sccgov.org/coronavirus.  And there's a learn what to do at the top, you just click learn what to do and we have guidance available in five languages for various situations. Thank you very much for your time.

MM: Thanks everybody

[Clarification: Marianna Moles describes the conglomerating at grocery stores as a “hot spot”. She simply means that many people tend to gather in these locations. This differs from virus hot spots and it is unknown at this time if grocery stores are virus hot spots.]