COUNTY DOING BETTER THAN ITS NEIGHBORS
Still, local public-health experts say commitment required to control spread of virus
As the state posted nearrecord single-day case and death numbers and hospitalizations hit the highest total so far during the pandemic, San Diego County increasingly appeared to be an island unto itself Wednesday.
As outlined in San Diego County’s midweek COVID-19 report, the region’s 14-day average rate for positive tests was 6.3 percent Tuesday, nearly a percentage point lower than the statewide figure of 7.2 percent. The additional 559 cases reported in San Diego County was the second-largest single-day total reported so far, which was also the case for the 11,126 cases reported statewide by the California Department of Public Health.
State records, though,
showed 8,353 Californians in hospital beds with COVID-19 diagnoses Tuesday, the largest single-day figure recorded since the pandemic began. At 482 on Tuesday, San Diego County’s total remained a bit off the peak of 493 set on June 29.
Overall, though, San Diego County’s hospital bed capacity did not seem as challenged as in other places, especially Los Angeles where Mayor Eric Garcetti warned the public earlier this week that a return to the stayat-home orders of the spring might soon be necessary to control the spread of the virus.
Asked what such an eventuality might mean for San Diego County, Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, said that deciding how to react to what’s going on with the neighbors will not be unilateral.
“We will continue to enforce the guidance that have been issued statewide,” Wooten said. “If we need to so something in terms of closing “borders” from other jurisdictions, that’s a political decision that will be made locally,” Wooten said.
Dr. Eric Mcdonald, medical director of the county’s epidemiology unit, noted that San Diego County currently has the lowest COVID-19 rates in Southern California. He said the public needs to remember that mask wearing, staying home as much as possible, hand washing and social distancing are critical in the current moment.
“We need to refocus our daily commitment to that when we hear these stories about our neighbors and friends north and south of us who are being affected disproportionately by this disease,” Mcdonald said.
The number of places people can go outside their own homes continues to shrink.
On Wednesday, houses of worship and an additional group of local businesses — including salons, barber shops and gyms — joined restaurants and bars on the list of locations no longer allowed to operate indoors due to a public health modification announced Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
It was clear, as the new rules took effect, that some were not going to change their approach
just because the governor said so.
Shawn Gilbert, owner of Boulevard Fitness in University Heights, said that while he closed operations Wednesday to conduct an additional deep cleaning and to make additional modifications to ensure six feet or more separation between his clients while they work out, the operation would open its doors again today.
With 40- to 50-foot ceilings and three roll-up doors, Gilbert said, he felt confident that he had made the necessary modifications to keep everyone safe. Closing again, he said, would simply be ruinous to a small business already battered by months spent shut down under statewide stay-athome orders.’
“We find it unlawful, what is happening,” he said. “The governor’s supposed to be protecting small businesses across the state, not destroying them.”
Gilbert, who said he does believe that COVID-19 is “a real thing,” added that while his lawyer assured him the government will not have the legal power to actually shut the gym down, the business has also banded together with five other similar operations to push back in court if necessary.
“We are preparing ourselves for a lawsuit if it comes to that,” he said. “If we have to, we will, but it is not something that we want to do.”
County officials did not comment about the threat of a lawsuit when asked about the situation during Wednesday’s news conference.
There has been an oft-expressed sentiment in recent weeks that because the virus is now infecting younger people than it was previously, especially those in their 20s and 30s, the current focus on preventing infections is misguided. Death rates, after all, are much lower among younger people.
Dr. Scott Eisman, a pulmonologist and executive at Scripps Health, came forward Wednesday to remind young people feeling Covid-19-proof that a lower death rate does not mean that no one in their 20s or 30s dies from this disease. And, he added, those who do survive may not make it through without suffering severe complications, such as stroke, neurological impairment and cardiovascular damage, especially to the blood vessels that serve the lungs.
No one really knows exactly what the gamble is that young people take with their futures when they get sick partying without a mask.
“We don’t really know at this point exactly how the disease will play out because it’s too new,” Eisman said.
The county has made community outbreaks, situations where three or more people from different households are suspected of having been infected in the same location, one of the main areas that receive regular attention from public health workers.
On Wednesday, four additional outbreaks were announced, including groups of positive tests at a local restaurant and bar, a barber shop, a salon and a laboratory.
The laboratory stood out on the list, and Mcdonald confirmed, without identifying the specific company, that the lab does do some COVID-19 testing as part of its operations. He said the infections were not thought to have been picked up from lab work itself.
“We don’t think it is the workplace that’s the issue, it’s actually workers who are at that workplace and interacting with each other outside the actual bench areas,” Mcdonald said, adding that similar situations have occurred among local health care workers.
Precautions, he said, tend to be followed closely when work is being performed, but might be less adhered to during down time.
“It’s more likely that they expose each other when they’re not in the actual specific work environment; it’s actually when they’re in a break area or they socialize together, that sort of thing,” Mcdonald said.
While San Diego County might be doing a bit better on the COVID-19 front than its neighbors, that does not mean that the local public health effort has been able to keep up with the onslaught of new cases.
On Tuesday, county health investigators were able to interview only 46 percent of those who newly tested positive within 24 hours of the county being notified.
“The numbers are not declining, they’re continuing to increase, so that’s what is contributing to that particular metric,” Wooten said.
The public health director said that her department put out a call to hire additional workers this week and immediately received more than 300 applications.