Q-and-a with our Bi-county Health officer
Earlier this week, Dr. Phuong Luu, Bi-county Health officer, upgraded a shelter-at-home and social distancing directive to an order, calling for stricter enforcement.
She said that she hoped YubaSutter residents would be more compliant with the order and also cited a website, Unacast, which monitors travel in counties and rates their adherence to stay-athome directives, noting that the bi-county area received very poor grades.
Also, the department started utilizing an upgraded dashboard of information and statistics concerning testing and confirmed cases in Yuba-sutter.
Luu responded to some questions put to her by the Appeal on Thursday:
Q: Can you give us an overview of the science behind the grading system used by the website you cited earlier this week (Unacast)? Do they arrive at their judgment by tracking mobile devices? …
A: You would have to look at Unacast’s website for details on their methodology, which can be found here: https://bit.ly/39uraet.
Q: Today’s (4-9-20) scores were B for Sutter and C for Yuba … so it changes daily? Overall, we’re just wondering if Unacast was the primary impetus for changing the directive to an order, or if there was other data used. (Since law enforcement had reported that they thought compliance was fairly good just a few days before.)
A: This website did not play any role in the decision to clarify a more stringent “stay at home” order; it was just noted for one of our daily Youtube briefings. The decision to extend and clarify the order was based on what local law enforcement has been seeing day-today: large basketball games, large gatherings and barbecues at parks, etc. While we have always encouraged solo outdoor activity, it was clear that pockets of the community have not heeded the “social distancing” aspect.
Q: Are there now or will there be any further demographics available concerning those who are screened/tested? … Anyway to tell if we’re effectively offering screening/testing to all, regardless of race, gender, language, etc., and importantly, income level?
A: Our dashboard, which is updated daily, does provide demographic data of age and gender.
Q: There’s quite a difference between the number of confirmed cases and the number of tests administered. Are all those who don’t test positive for the virus exhibiting similar symptoms?
A: We’re pleased any time a test result comes back negative, but testing kits continue to be in limited supply locally, as well as throughout the state. Symptoms may range among confirmed cases, but one of the challenges has been that symptoms of COVID-19 are similar to that of the flu. So it’s fair to say that those who were tested exhibited more severe symptoms including shortness of breath, dry cough, and fever.
Q: Can we offer people any information about recovery of those confirmed cases? Are most of those people still under quarantine, or have they gotten well and do they go back to normal?
A: Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) there are two mechanisms for determining when a patient is noninfectious: 1) Test-based and 2) Non-test based. For all non-hospitalized patients, we are using the non-test based criteria. Going by the non-test based approach, a patient must fulfill all three criteria before being deemed non-infectious. One, a positive case must be seven days from the first day of symptom onset. Two, they must be feeling better. And three they must be without the presence of a fever, without the use of fever reducing medication for at least 72 hours.