Monday, June 29, 2020

CoViD-19 Continues to Spread | San Diego County Is Reclosing All Bars, Wineries, and Breweries | Stop Hate For Profit

Albino Wallaby Joey at San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Photo by Nova (6.28.2020)

I took the weekend off from CoViD-19 updates because at this point, if you're not paying attention, you're not going to now but I will do updates for today nonetheless. Instead, we spent Friday evening checking out the sea lions after Nova's first soccer practice/"camp", , we did a big CostCo run (but no paper towels!!), I finished reading another Mindy McGinnis book and started a new one, binged "Love, Victor" on Hulu, watched some other random streaming movies, and went to San Diego Zoo Safari Park in the late afternoon on Sunday. I got a new camera so it was fun to test it out, and Nova's learning to use my old one, so this is a pic of the albino wallaby joey that she took. We went back to the Zoo today but it turned into Stroller Derby and we had to get out of there. We hit up Costco again and people are either stocking up for the 4th or expecting stay-at-home to be reinstated so we still couldn't find paper towels. Today's news is pretty grim but not unexpected, so I'll do some Zoo and Safari Posts soon just to break things up a little bit. In the meantime, here's your briefing news...after the jump.  

  • STOP HATE FOR PROFIT (an effort to force Facebook to stop profiting while they refuse to stop false information, hate speech, and outright lies) is working! Happy to say Casbah won't be advertising in July. 
  • COVID-19:
  • California Governor Newsom Media Briefing:
    • BARS:
      • "Due to the rising spread of #COVID19, CA is ordering bars to close in Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, San Joaquin, and Tulare" 
      • "Recommending bars close in Contra Costa, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, & Ventura.
      • Urging Imperial to reissue stay-at-home order countywide. If their Board of Supervisors can't come to consensus, "State will assert its authority"
        • Criteria for counties closing sectors uses 14-day trends
        • Criteria for recommending closures uses 3-14 day trends
    • Stats:
      • New statewide cases Friday: 5932. Sat: 4810. Sun: 5307
      • 45% increase in total positivity rate in California over past 7 days. 
      • Current positivity rate is 5.5% (14 day) 5.9% (7 day)
      • 43% increase in hospitalizations in last two weeks 
      • 4,776 Covid patients in hospitals represent 7% of 42,895 total hospitalizations. Combined, they're using 58% of statewide capacity. 13% of ICU beds are Covid, but total ICU (Covid/Non-Covid) is about 39% of ICU capacity.
    • Numbers are going up, but we have capacity (for now) but that's why we're trying to stop the spread and get some control over the virus (my words, not Newsom's)
    • State is monitoring all 58 counties. Targeting 19 counties. Reinstituting community Measures in 7 counties. (Added 4 new counties to targeted engagement, including OC)  
    • My analysis: 
      • If businesses can't get their shit together, the State has regulatory and code capacity to enforce regulations and health orders (ABC, OSHA, etc)
      • State is considering further closures beyond Bars, Wineries, Breweries (expect restaurants to go back to take-out)
  • County of San Diego Media Briefing
    • Stay-At-Home order flattened the curve, allowed us to build capacity, stockpile PPE, get contact tracers trained
    • County knew they couldn't stop all spread, but didn't want significant spread
    • Hit triggers for community spread, rising hospitalization, rising cases
    • Current numbers are delayed due to lag in testing
      • All BAR, WINERIES, BREWERIES that do not have a license to serve food are closing as of midnight Tuesday
      • Reinstating that beer, wine, alcohol can only be consumed during your meal
      • Restaurant patrons must be seated at a table with distance in all restaurants.
        • Why bars??
          • Solely social settings/People from different households are mixing
          • Less inhibitions = Less compliance
          • People stay longer 
          • Yelling/Talking loudly spreads more droplets
          • Strangers congregate in bars which makes thorough contact tracing impossible
      • No new reopenings will occur in July:
        • Even if guidelines are issued, like conferences, gatherings, church capacity, venues, sports, etc, there will be NO NEW OPENINGS in July
      • Talking to hospitals to establish needs 
      • County will be increasing enforcement with code compliance and law enforcement
      • July 4th weekend is coming up. NO GATHERINGS. 
    • Stats are all going up sharply. Link to daily slides are here. 
      • 498 news cases since yesterday. Single highest day yet. 
      • 134 community outbreaks; 65 are still active
        • 21 are SNFs (1 new since yesterday)
        • 32 Congregate settings (no new
        • 22 Community Outbreaks (2 new since yesterday in restaurants/bars) 
        • 7 or more in past 7 days.
        • Bars and Restaurants represent 27% of community outbreaks
      • Gatherings, house parties, etc. are still not allowed
    • Media questions:
      • County will be working with all law enforcement across all county jurisdictions to discuss/implement enforcement
      • Protesters are consitutionally covered and HAVE NOT SEEN ANY PROTEST OUTBREAKS TO DATE
      • "No actions were taken for triggers." Did County wait too long? 
        • Only 2 triggers have been set off. County didn't want to close entire sectors, just specific businesses. Measures have been taken by environmental health on specific businesses. Now they're closing bars because they tend to be used by younger people and that's where we're seeing numbers rise
        • Goal is not to "shut down society" it is to "curb the spread"
        • County doesn't measure specific cases related to wineries and bars
      • County tracks non-resident numbers. 
        • Has been looking and nearby counties and states.  
        • Arizona Cases in San Diego: 16 total, with 7 in the last week 
        • Imperial County 330 total, with 61 in last week
      • County will be discussing with hospitals elective surgeries, ICU, future needs, etc. 
      • County keeps contract tracing confidential to encourage participation by individuals and businesses. Current tracing is 87%. 
      • Today's restrictions are being consistent with neighboring areas/counties so that we're not inundated with people from other areas seeing us as the 
      • Hospitalized patients from Imperial are being managed by the State. Hospitals have taken over half of evacuated patients, but only with prior knowledge and approval by hospitals
      • County will reach out to Cities and jurisdictions to ascertain if they can enforce distancing or if there's an action they want the County to take
  • County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher Daily Personal Briefing
    • The hope was with tracing, testing, isolation, adaptation of behaviors, we would flatten curve and also reduce spread. 
    • We opened too much, too soon, was lone vote against reopening
    • There's a public disconnect with efforts to flatten the curve and the reality of actual danger of the virus
    • Last four days have been top four daily records since the beginning of outbreak
    • Statistic lag is because people can contract virus, have 5-7 day incubation, begin to show mild symptoms, couple days to get tested, couple days to get results 
    • No outbreaks from reopening protests nor Black Lives Matter. It is believed outdoor settings have less danger (not *no* danger)
    • Take contact tracing seriously

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