KELSEYVILLE— Members of Lake County’s Public Health Department, including Dr. Gary Pace, health officer for the county, hospital officials, Emergency Medical Services and other public officials participated in a town hall meeting at the Grace Evangelical Free Church Monday night in order to inform and update the public about prevention of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and in an effort to educate the community about the challenges facing officials in regards to a large potential health crisis and to address their concerns.
“We are here to get informed about the Coronavirus,” said Lily Woll, a candidate for District 5 Supervisor who acted as the forum moderator. “We hear about it often on the news and it’s becoming scarier and scarier for some every day.”
Pace said he was hoping to give the sparse audience at the Kelseyville facility (and the community members watching the meeting streaming live on the County of Lake Facebook page) a quick overview and to talk about the local situation with the Coronavirus. Pace added that he was also there to talk about some of the Health Department’s preparations and the contacts they have made. Pace acknowledged the expertise gathered at a panel addressing the issue which included Dr. Diane Pege, Teresa Campbell and Tammy Carter, all health professionals from Sutter Lakeside hospital, EMS staff, a representative from the Lake County Office of Education and Sheriff Brian Martin, among them.
Pace said that currently in the United States there have been about 100 detected cases in addition to six deaths due to the virus. He added that there has been very little testing in the U.S. partly because the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had a limited number of tests and have been very specific about the kind of people which health officials were able to test. He said mainly they were very sick people which had contact with people in China and other places where the infection was found to have spread.
According to Pace, local officials don’t really know how widespread the virus is in the community, but will soon have a better sense of it, adding that the strategy up to this point from experts has been a containment strategy designed to limit travel into the county from high risks areas. “We’re at the point now that we are shifting more to what we call a mitigation strategy. You are not keeping the sick people out, it’s in the community and you are trying to limit the spread within the community,” he said.
Pace noted that at this point in time in Lake County, the risk is still considered very low despite cases surfacing in neighboring counties where health emergencies have been declared. “We are not at that point yet,” he said.
Martin, speaking in his capacity as the county’s director of emergency services, said anybody who’s lived in Lake County for any length of time has dealt some sort of emergency and this is just another one, albeit different. He added the protocol and response was first to protect employees and their families. “If our employees and their families are sick and they are affected by this, we can’t deliver services. Our number one priority is to make sure our employees stay healthy, stay safe,” said Martin. The sheriff added this is accomplished by providing employees guidance and education.
Robert Young, liaison between the Lake County Office of Education and the County, said the County has had previous experience with similar emergencies such as in 2009 when the Swine Flu came through the area. He said a lot of the protocols used now were in place then, including implementing some universal precautions, making sure cleanings of surface areas are identified and that the ill stay home, following the advice of Public Health whom they keep in constant contact with in addition to monitoring data such as spikes in absences due to health concerns.
Although there have been school closures already due to the virus, most notably a closure of a small private school in Healdsburg on Monday in Sonoma County, Young said closures would not be considered in Lake County without Dr Pace or the County’s Health Department being in talks about whether they needed to move in that direction.
Diane Pege, chief medical executive at Sutter Lakeside Hospital talked about the virus itself and outlined things doctors and staff are doing to help prevent the spread of the virus. Pege said what’s different about Corona versus other airborne viruses is that it’s very light and tends to hover and stay in the air, which is why you see a lot of people wearing masks to help prevent the spread of the virus. She added that it is known that the virus is very easy to kill once it touches a surface and will respond to almost any cleaner which kills viruses, some common to the public like Pine-Sol and Lysol.
Health officials at the meeting also stressed that hand washing is the number one method of preventing spread and spoke about such things as “cough etiquette,” advising members of the public not to cough into their hands, to instead cough into their elbows because they are less likely to touch things with that part of their body, and to stay home if they are feeling sick. They also advised people call for treatment because there are plenty of supportive measures that health practitioners can use.
A question and answer session followed the meeting where community members asked among other queries if there were plans for large scale quarantine centers, if there had been any local testing conducted and if seniors in the county were at higher risk than other members of the population. Officials responded by stating that “we are not yet at a point” where planning for quarantine centers is necessary, though it isn’t completely ruled out as a future measure to address potential cases, and also said not much testing has been conducted given the CDC has thus far been tight about testing due to a lack of supply of testing kits. Pace acknowledged that it seems as though the elderly are the most vulnerable.
