Coren: Virus enforces restrictions

Health Officer said it will up to individuals to slow the spread of Covid-19

When asked if enforcement of the restriction on gatherings designed to slow the spread of Covid-19 would include law enforcement knocking on doors to see if people had relatives visiting for Christmas, Mendocino

County Public Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren said county residents would not suddenly be living “in a police state,” and adherence to the rules would still be up to individuals.

“Who enforces this? This virus enforces it,” Dr. Coren said. “This is a public health emergency. We are giving guidance… and it is up to each of us individually to enforce among our friends and our family the guidance that’s being given to save lives. We can’t knock on doors to see who’s together; and it’s not going to be a citation that’s the big suffering. It will be someone getting sick, then hospitalized or dying, and not being able to go visit them — that’s the threat. Enforcement will be selfdiscipline, and the consequences of not doing that is something we really don’t want to talk about.

“This is not comfortable for anyone in our community, or anyone in California, but this is a crisis,” he continued. “This is a war against the virus. There are not bombs falling from the sky, but there is a virus, and it’s going around and it’s hitting us all. We need to stay vigilant, masked, socially distanced; and all these restrictions couldn’t have come at a worse time, during the holidays, but that’s what we need to do to save each others’ lives.”

One of the reasons why holiday gatherings are so risky, Coren and former Public Health Officer Dr. Noemi Doohan told the Men

docino County Board of Supervisors this week, is because eating and drinking indoors are some of the most risky activities to engage in.

“When people eat and drink in a room, and they take down their masks, the Covid is, to some extent, in the air, and you can get it from the air,” said Dr. Doohan. “And that is why indoor restaurants have been closed by the state, and this is why eating outside (is recommended), and having meals in your workplace, in enclosed break rooms” is not recommended.

“If you are a worker, and you are going to eat lunch, the safest place for you to eat it is outside,” Doohan continued. “If you have a break room in your workplace, and you have people coming in and taking down their masks to drink coffee, that is dangerous. Even just dropping down your mask for a moment to take those sips of coffee, you are potentially exposing yourself to Covid.”

Doohan said that at all times when people are at work, they should be wearing masks “that cover your nose, your mouth and your chin,” (and ) if you are eating and drinking with people not in your household, “eat outside and keep six feet apart, including if you are just having coffee.”

When asked by Second

District Supervisor John Mccowen whether the county should consider issuing an order that work break rooms should either be closed or limited to use by only one person at a time, Coren said “that might be a good thing to do,” while Doohan described that as “being more restrictive than the state’s orders.”

“Understood, but ( break rooms) seem to be a growing source of these outbreaks, and I think we had 20 cases resulting from one break room at a local business,” Mccowen said. “It seems like we should consider being more restrictive than the state, as our local data seems to indicate that ( break rooms) are a fairly significant source of transmission.”