LAKE COUNTY—The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday heard the latest COVID-19 update from Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace who stated that although he was well aware of the social and economic impacts of keeping the local economy shut down, the coronavirus is still out there with the Los Angeles areas getting new cases and deaths on a regular basis. Pace said that even though residents feel somewhat protected in Lake County, the prediction is that a rise in cases is anticipated with an increase of 3,000 deaths a day during the summer according to the President’s office’s modeling and other news reports.
“The main tool we have to control it is the distancing and the shelter in place sorts of things,” Pace said adding that Lake County had confirmed an eight case on Monday, a person in the jail which was picked up by surveillance testing which the sheriff conducted and this has led to all the appropriate actions of testing other people in the area. Pace said so far there were 100 tests done from a couple of weeks ago, 90 of the results are back and this was the only positive from the county jail.
“We are going to go ahead and get some testing on all of the people that have had contact with this person and see what exactly is going on there. Outbreaks in the jail can be particularly worrisome, this one may be something that’s already sort of passed or something that’s brewing, we don’t know right yet, so that’s part of what’s happening with the testing going on right now,” said Pace adding that of the other seven confirmed cases in the county, six of them have recovered and the other one is doing fine at home complying with home isolation.
Pace spoke to the board about preparations which he said were really important in terms of what Gov. Gavin Newsome is going to allow. He said the different counties need to have good preparations in place so that when cases do start surging the county can recognize what is going on and respond appropriately.
According to Pace, the first important component of planning is testing which he called “the biggest challenge in the county.” He said the county has conducted approximately 600 tests and as of Tuesday, the county started its first drive-thru test site. Two of them will take place this week and up to 50 people a day can be served. “Basically if someone wants to get testing, they get on the website, there’s a screening form, they get an appointment and then when they come through the appointment, they’ll drive up stay in their car, one of the nurses (is) going to put a swab in their nose and then it’ll go up to a lab and the results will come back in a day or two.” Pace said there will be no doctor’s order required for people to be able to get tested.
“This is a big deal, a lot of staff time has gone into this, there’s a lot of effort that goes into putting one of these things that we don’t really have the staffing in the county to do this,” Pace said. “We’ve been trying to get some help from the state level on a couple of different pathways but it seems to be slow coming through and it’s not clear exactly if any state help is going to come through or not.”
Pace added that community medical providers have been provided with more resources which will enable them to expand their ability to do testing as well. The next piece that is going to be in the Governor’s checklist, according to Pace, has to do with contract tracing and isolation. He added that the three nursing facilities in the community have been doing well with masking staff, screening and testing of staff and that most are testing anybody that comes from the outside to make sure that everything is OK. He said the hospitals continue to be very good partners and are doing a great job.
“The Governor came out yesterday and we’ve been trying to stay in line with what the governor is allowing,” Pace said, stating that the county is allowed to be tighter than the state in terms of restrictions, but not to be looser because the state law is the one that sets the bar.
“There’;s been a big sort of controversy and a lot of pressure from the smaller rural counties who have not felt that it was fair to have us be treated in the same way as the large urban areas where there’s a lot of cases. There’s been a lot of discussion, a lot of pressure and he (the governor) seems to have finally heard that and is willing to shift.”
Pace stated that from the state’s point of view they are really wanting not to pull back too fast and allow a big surge of cases and a lot of loss of life to occur from that. “They are trying to balance all these different concerns together.”
As of this coming Friday, according to the governor’s plan, Lake County will be allowed to move from phase one with some relaxing of restrictions for a few retail businesses which can conduct curbside pickup and sales, these include bookstores and clothing stores. “This is kind of the green light that we’ve been waiting form,” Pace said. He added that in terms of opening the Lake, that is a matter not of whether it will happen, but of when. Pace concluded that accelerated movement into later stages of the plans to allow for more businesses to reopen will depend on various factors including more testing, to the tune of 67 tests per day.
“I want to move as fast as we can and also with an eye to keeping people safe, but also balancing the needs of the community” Pace told the board.
