Message from SMC Chief of Health, Louise Rogers
This letter written by SMC Chief of Health, Louise Rogers, was sent to all council members in the county relative to the county’s placement on the state’s watch list. We have obtained a copy to provide you insight into our health department’s perspective on this matter.
"Dear Health staff and partners,
I’m writing to give you some context for the recent news that we in San Mateo County (SMC) have joined 38 other counties including all the Bay Area counties on the State’s COVID-19 monitoring list, and as a result, additional businesses located in SMC were closed last Sunday (there are certain services that may be moved outside or to curbside).* You may also have read or heard in the news about our Health Officer Dr. Scott Morrow’s strong concerns about the closures. You can read his message here. The simple version is that we don’t see evidence of community transmission of the virus in SMC as being substantially impacted by the activities in the sectors the State has closed and thus we don’t think those closures were necessary.
What we do see is that the spread of the virus is highly connected to gatherings without sufficient physical distancing and wearing of face coverings, as well as higher exposure for residents performing front line essential work that cannot be closed (food services, custodial/maintenance) and that involves person to person contact and workers who live in crowded housing situations that makes isolation difficult and spread within families likely. The demographics of our positive cases closely mirror the demographics of our Medi-Cal and uninsured/ACE population and the root cause of poverty is a large driver and barrier to being able to afford to isolate for people who are positive. In addition to the expansion of contact investigation and tracing to identify and isolate positive cases that we are trying mobilizing with the support of many County staff, we are also putting together resources for a more supportive wrap-around approach to support the people who contract the virus and face barriers to isolation. While our efforts will not address the root causes of poverty, we hope to be able to remove some of the barriers they face such as dependent care, food insecurity and immediate financial crisis. The County has also worked with private philanthropists to create an Immigrant Relief Fund for people who are not eligible for other forms of relief.
For the data mavens among you, note that our Health data dashboards @ https://www.smchealth.org/coronavirus tracking the pandemic have been compromised by a massive breakdown in the State’s data system for tracking tests statewide. While the Public Health team works with the State along with all of the other counties to stand up alternatives to this system, please do not rely on any of the data on our dashboards that relates to testing until we report that the State problem has been fixed. It is heartening that our COVID-related hospitalizations, which are still accurately reported, have been declining and are well-within available capacity.
Finally, if you have opportunity to reinforce among those you know the key behaviors of face covering, hand washing, physical distance, and avoiding gatherings, please do! These are the ways we can be most helpful to our collective progress in slowing the spread.
Regards,
Louise Rogers, Chief of Health
*The businesses include gyms and fitness centers, places of worship, indoor protests, certain offices for non-critical infrastructure sectors, personal care services (nail salons, massage and tattoo parlors), hair salons and barbershops and malls. The Governor also issued guidance that school in person re-openings cannot occur in counties on the monitoring list at the middle and high school levels for until 14 days have passed after being taken off the monitoring list. There is a waiver process for elementary schools that we will be developing with the County Office of Education in the coming days."
