City of Cupertino, CA County of Santa Clara COVID-19 Videos, 28 Dec 2021

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From YouTube: County Public Health Dept. Press Conference (Booster Requirements) - December 28, 2021

Description

The County of Santa Clara Health Officer issued a health order requiring up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination for workers in certain higher-risk settings in light of the rapid surge in cases due to the Omicron variant. The new order builds on recent changes in the State Health Officer’s vaccination requirements by mandating up-to-date vaccination by workers in certain healthcare and long-term care settings. Under the new local health order, by January 24, 2022, workers must be up-to-date on their vaccination (i.e., both fully vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19 if eligible for a booster) in these higher-risk settings:

* skilled nursing facilities, long-term care facilities, adult day care facilities, and memory care facilities;

* healthcare delivery facilities (such as hospitals, clinics, medical offices, dialysis centers) where patient care is provided, as well as medical first responders;

* jails and other correctional facilities; and

* congregate shelters.

The August 2, 2021 Health Order requiring universal indoor masking remains in effect throughout Santa Clara County.

This press conference was recorded on December 28, 2021.

For more information regarding the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in Cupertino, please visit https://www.cupertino.org/coronavirus

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For the latest information regarding the kovid 19 pandemic in cupertino, please visit.

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Cupertino.Org coronavirus.

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Good morning, everyone, my name, is james williams and I'm the county council for the county of santa clara, thanks for joining us. We're here today to provide some important updates on the omicron variant here in santa clara county, as well as some critical recommendations from our county health officer. Dr sarah cody.

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These are community-wide recommendations after dr cody speaks to both that critical update and those community-wide recommendations, I'll be with you for a few minutes to talk about the issuance today of a limited health order requiring up-to-date vaccination of personnel in higher risk settings.

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But first I'm going to turn it over to our public health officer, dr sarah cody, for that omicron update and community-wide recommendations.

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Good morning, everyone I'm dr sarah cody health officer here in the county of santa clara on this chilly late december morning. To give you an update on omicron, I want to tell you where we are tell you about some actions that we're taking, which james will detail as well as, most importantly, our recommendations for our community in the days and weeks ahead.

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Since the last time we spoke, which was just less than two weeks ago, I warned of a deluge of omicron and today, unfortunately, that deluge is here.

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Our cases here in santa clara county are spiking and the vast majority of them are omicron.

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So when I last spoke with you less than two weeks ago on december 16th, our case rates were relatively flat. So we look at both how many new cases we have each day as well as rates and whether you're looking at the number of cases or the rates they've all almost tripled since the last time that I was here so, for example, we look at how many cases on average per 100 thousand people per day. It was around 10. When we last spoke. It's now over 30.

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on the 16th. When we last spoke, we had um some like a little over cases reported that day on december 23rd. If you look at our dashboard, you can see over a thousand cases reported on that day.

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Our test, positivity rate, is also increasing.

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So far, our hospitalizations are relatively flat, but we are of course concerned about that and the recommendations that I will share with you today and the order that james will detail for you today are really to protect our health care system.

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So we know that our health care system and every healthcare worker, in our in our county and in our region, have worked incredibly hard over the last two years to care for all of us when we get sick, whether it's covid or something else, and our health care workers are a little tired but they're still here and they're here. For us, what we want to do is ensure that our health care workers and our health care system can absorb whatever hospital surge may be coming their way.

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Our recommendations are designed to help ensure that our health care system can absorb the deluge that we that that is here now, each of us, whether we need care for a heart attack a stroke, a bad accident or covid. um We need to make sure that that hospitals and our and our health care workers are ready to take care of us.

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So, even though we're all a little weary, we are asking everyone to continue to do their part, uh and we have a few very specific recommendations.

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The very first and the very most important is that everyone who has not yet gotten vaccinated, please please, please get a vaccine if you're, five years old or more, the vaccines are here for you. Our sites are open and ready to take your appointment.

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Second, if you're, 16 and up and eligible for your booster shot, get your booster shot. What we know is that protection from the initial series of vaccine, it does wane over time, really important to get boosted and boost your level of protection back to where it needs to be to weather. This surge um second recommendation is to mask so we're all masked, even though we're outdoors, because we're a little bit close together.

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We also recommend that, at this point during this omicron surge that people not gather indoors unless they're masked, so if you're indoors, wherever whatever the setting, is even if it's in your home, if you've got more than about 10 people from outside your house coming in, we really urge you to keep your masks on. Keep your masks on.

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Third is ventilation. We talk about these layers of prevention, vaccinate mask distance, boost, etc.

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So ventilate, whenever possible, move things outdoors, just as we're doing now, even if it's a little bit cold, you know pop on your jacket pop on your hat, move things outdoors and when it's not possible, make sure that you're in a building with good ventilation and then the next things we're not mandating, but we're really strongly urging and recommending that that businesses and other governmental entities also implement mandatory vaccination requirements for their staff and personnel and make sure that everyone is up to date on their vaccines, which means primary series plus booster, when eligible for anyone who's not up to date on their vaccine.

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For whatever reason, we recommend regular testing and, of course, we recommend testing when anyone has symptoms of covid.

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And finally, we recommend that any businesses that serve the public, where the business requires patrons to take off their mask, for example, restaurants and bars. We recommend strongly that those businesses require their patrons to be up to date on their vaccinations before entering the business.

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So I've talked a lot about uh boosters and I want to give you a little bit of an update of where we are with boosters since they're, so important in enabling us to weather this next patch, our county right now, 52 of those eligible to be boosted have been boosted for those 65 and up and again we're quite worried about older adults because of their greater risk of hospitalization, 67 percent have been boosted.

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Our booster demand has been steady over the last several weeks and in our county we do have the capacity to absorb the demand. I believe that you can get a same day or next day appointment, especially if you're willing to go to a site that may not be right near your home. You can get a booster here in santa clara county, and that is what we strongly recommend.

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So in closing before I turn things over to james, I just want to say to our community. We are grateful for everything that everyone has done for each other over the last two years. I understand that we are all quite tired of this pandemic.

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However, the deluge is here and we each need to take some additional steps to get us through to the other side. We've had many challenges over the last two years, we've been able to meet them, and I am confident that we will meet this challenge as well. Thank you.

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Thank you, dr cody, in addition to the strong community-wide recommendations that dr cody has made, including that all employers mandate, up-to-date vaccination, meaning boosters for all of their employees today we're issuing a health order that puts in place some limited vaccination mandates and builds on recent actions by the state health officer.

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So in light of the rapid increase in cases and the expected strain on the health care system on december 22nd, the state health officer updated three state health orders that broadly require vaccination by workers in health care, correctional health care and adult care settings, so that those orders now also require that by february, first workers in those settings be boosted.

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Today's local health order builds on these state orders by requiring that workers in these and other higher risk settings be vaccinated and boosted, that is up to date by january 24th and that they be excluded from working in these higher risk settings if they're, unvaccinated or unboosted by no later than february. First, the local order is a limited measure.

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That's intended to focus on protecting vulnerable populations that these workers interact with to protect the workers themselves and their co-workers and to ensure continuity of operations in these critical sectors, as cases rapidly rise, and it expands on the state requirements in three important ways.

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It applies to a slightly broader set of workers, namely medical, first responders, such as paramedics and emts, those working in shelters and non-healthcare staff in jails and correctional settings.

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It moves up the booster date to january 24th, given the importance of acting quickly and it prohibits unvaccinated workers, including those with approved religious or medical exemptions, from working in higher risk settings altogether effective february 1st. These workers may still be accommodated in non-higher risk settings by their employer for the purposes of this limited mandate.

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The settings that we're talking about the higher risk settings are places where there's shared airspace or proximity with patients, clients or vulnerable populations in skill, nursing facilities, long-term care facilities, adult day care facilities and memory care facilities, all health care delivery facilities, as well as all medical first responders, regardless of where they work, jails and other correctional facilities and all congregate. Shelters.

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Again, as dr cody mentioned, over 52 percent of those who are eligible in our county are already boosted, but we need to get that rate much higher. Boosters are readily available, but for workers in these higher risk settings boosters are absolutely critical, given what we're facing right now, the need to ensure continuity of operations in those settings and the vulnerability of the populations that they work. With with that, I think we're happy to answer questions.

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um But if boosters are so poor in this case, why is the county not mandating vaccines in places like restaurants and bars, and my second question for you would be you were saying that uh the hospital, uh the hospitalizations right now are relatively flat, uh but of course, you're concerned about that where what, uh if they are flat, what are your concerns about? Where do they find there? If, at the very.

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So an answer to your question: around hospitalizations, the uh the impact on hospitals tends to lag a bit so throughout the pandemic. First, we see a rise in cases and a bit later we see a rise in hospitalizations and a bit after that we see a bump in deaths from covid.

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So while we don't yet know exactly how the severity of omicron compares with the severity to other variants is that our case rates are going up incredibly fast and some proportion of people that get sick will require a hospital bed, and so we are anticipating.

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That our case this will exceed what they did last winter, so even a small proportion will have a significant impact on our hospitals and that's what we are concerned about and that's why we are trying to do everything that we can to to protect the health care system. So it's there to serve everyone regarding your questions around mandating that hospital that um I'm sorry, restaurants or other business settings require vaccination.

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Our rates of vaccination in the county, as you know, are extraordinarily high. Some of I believe we still may be highest rates of vaccination for a large metro area in the entire country.

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And the complexity now with knowing that you need to be up to date, you need to be boosted, so our feeling is that it's extremely important, but we're not taking that final step of mandating it. Our businesses have been incredibly responsible and responsive and safe with their patrons.

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What I would say to patrons is for now I would recommend patronizing your favorite restaurant by ordering takeout or delivery by tipping a lot if you're able to support them, but gathering indoors without a mask is as not the safest way to be right now with omicron spiking, as it is next question.

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Should we anticipate any stricter lockdowns.

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Right now, where we are, is at a place, that's different than we've ever been in the pandemic and I'll explain how it's different number. One we've had now a little bit over a year of vaccines being available, our population is highly vaccinated. That was not true.

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Last winter, however, as we learn about the interplay between the vaccines and the variants, we also know that with delta and now, particularly with omicron, we see a lot of breakthrough infections, breakthrough infections, with people who are vaccinated, but not yet boosted, and that's why boosting is so important, based on what we've seen about how omicron behaves in other parts of the world and other parts of the country it grows with breathtaking speed, a doubling time of around two days in many communities.

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When we look at our our epi curve, which you can see on our website, you can see that it is shooting up, so it is likely to shoot up and go higher than it was before and, as I mentioned just a bit ago, even if a smaller proportion of those cases end up requiring a hospital bed, it could still end up being a lot of people just because the absolute number of cases is quite large.

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As I said, I think we are in a very different place than we were before we're now two years in our community and our you know are all of us. We are equipped with tools that we did not have. Two years ago, we have plentiful, high quality masks. Many buildings have been retrofitted and are better ventilated.

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We have widespread testing, we have vaccination, we have booster. So I think that what we all need to do is all use those tools and we will be able to get through this search.

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Just a question about testing.

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Tests at home, if they.

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Come back positive, should they report that to county should they get an additional passion or just you know, stay home.

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Forever, if you are ill or exposed or for any other reason, and then you test positive, you definitely need to stay at home, isolated away from others at this point in the pandemic. At this moment I understand that at home, tests are difficult to come by.

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We have widespread testing, but sometimes it takes a little bit of work to get an appointment. So it is not absolutely critical that you get that you get your home test confirmed with a pcr test. We do not have a way for people to report their home tests.

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So that brings me to an important point, which is that the cases that we see and report on our dashboard are an under count of what's actually happening, and we understand that it gives us a sense for the trajectory, but we know it certainly doesn't capture all the positives and that's another reason why our focus is going to be on looking at what's happening in our hospitals, because we really need to understand the impact on our hospitals.

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We have seen our booster demand uh stay at fairly steady levels over the last several weeks. I think that the surge and omicron has has inspired many to get boosters and has kept our booster demand stable.

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You know, I'm not hearing your question well because there's uh someone rolling a cart. What what's the question.

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It shows that the everyday the last favorite include was december. 23Rd show that the climb started. It's like a velcro in the booster shops.

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I believe that the demand for boosters has been relatively stable.

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Sometimes the data- that's posted on the dashboard lags a bit before getting.

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But looking looking back, I think the demand has been fairly steady, we're here today to again share with.

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Please get your booster shot if you've not done so already. Our county sites are ready to take your appointment and give you a booster.

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Do you have any concerns that this additional mandate that look forward forget the booster will cause that.

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To get even worse,.

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The reason for our health order is uh a couple points that I wanted to to build on um one. Our health order builds on the state's health order, which already offers quite significant protection, and we wanted to build on that further. As james mentioned, we are concerned about staffing at hospitals, long-term care facilities, skilled nursing facilities.

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Which is why it is so very important that staff get a booster to keep them healthy and well and able to serve patients.

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At this point with omicron surging, the way that it is, I would not recommend new year's celebrations unless they are small.

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Small intimate gatherings is the way to go this new year's. It's not the time to go to a large gathering. The only exception would be if you're going to spend the entire gathering outdoors and if you've got great unified.

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But it's not that it's really at this point simply people will be removing their.

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This order applies to all healthcare workers in the county who are who work in higher risk settings, so that includes acute care, hospitals, outpatient settings, skilled nursing facilities, long-term care facilities and other outpatient settings such as dialysis centers. For example. All workers correct all workers, correct.

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So the first question has to do with the provision in the order that requires the exclusion of unvaccinated and unboosted workers from these higher risk settings and just to clarify it does not in any way affect an employer's ability to process and approve a religious or medical exemption.

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But it affects what is then done in that processing of that exemption, and so just as is true with any number of other medical conditions or other exemptions. If you can't be accommodated in that role, you have to be potentially reassigned to a different role in the organization or the organization has take other steps if it can.

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But this order says those individuals cannot work in these higher risk settings so that'll be something that employers will have to deal with on a case-by-case basis, just as they do anyway with respect to their employees. But I just want to clarify it's not itself saying you can't have a religious or medical exemption, but saying that those with an exemption can't work in these higher risk settings.

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So the question was: will this incentivize the city or other employers, including, for example, the county going back to earlier question? um It is the strong recommendation that all employers in our community have a booster mandate for all of their employees period, regardless of the high risk setting. So it's a mandate in high risk settings and it's a strong recommendation across the board.

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We certainly hope that all employers in our community, including governmental entities, will move forward with doing so, and it would be my expectation that the county will follow those recommendations, just like it has in the past.

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For the latest information regarding the covid 19 pandemic in cupertino, please visit cupertino.org.

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