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San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

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Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#41

Post by acwan93 »

This sends a much different and much more coherent message than what I’ve heard in LA County, which makes me believe the Bay Area has this more under control than SoCal even if San Mateo isn’t following in lockstep with the other Bay Area counties.

A mix of Mayor Garcetti’s (the city of LA) messaging mixed with the state and county orders, alongside two conflicting health department orders (Pasadena + LA County) have made navigating guidance totally confusing. There’s even infighting within the LA County Board of Supervisors, and talk of some cities to create their own health departments.

>14. The new State framework is rife with inexplicable inconsistencies of logic.

Not just that, you should read Garcetti’s stay at home orders last week, ordering people to stay home with 12 pages of exceptions.

>15. Beyond the basic human needs for air, water, food, shelter, and safety, it has, to date, been impossible for me to define what is “essential” to the 800,000 people who live here.

At this point, it seems like it’s up to the business owner to decide if they’re essential. Anecdotally I’ve heard of every small business owner here in LA call themselves essential simply because they “support essential infrastructure”.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#42

Post by frakkingcylons »

tayo42 wrote: post #21

Seems like he's being contrarian at times. > what we have before us is a symbolic gesture, it appears to be style over substance I think the problem with being idealistic is people will see this leader,(especially in liberal mecca that is the sf bay area or how ever those people talk now) will latch on to this as a reason to do keep acting irresponsibly and justify their behavior. > Less overall mobility, means less…

> Like is missing a year of 4th grade going to be a problem for anyone?

Yes definitely. I've been tutoring students in 5-7th grade for about two years, most of them benefit from tutoring because they have knowledge gaps missing from previous school years (for whatever reason). Before March this year, all the tutoring was in-person and it was relatively easy to keep them engaged and they made good progress. Now that I'm doing this over video calls, their attention wanders much more easily. Motivating them to do work is very challenging nowadays.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#43

Post by postingawayonhn »

plasma wrote: post #16

It takes leadership of government, focus, sacrifice, and understanding of the citizens to fight this virus. I'm based in Australia, Victoria (population of 6m+, exceeding the 800k mentioned in the Bay Area [EDIT: San Mateo county]) and we have now had over 30 days of zero cases of coronavirus, after having a peak of 680+ per day [1]. We went into a tough lockdown, stamped out the virus, and are slowly easing restrict…

It did come at a terrible economic cost that has yet to be fully understood, and arguably was only possible due to the rest of Australia being largely COVID free and open.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#44

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

threatofrain wrote: post #12

If the sum of regional policies are effective at maneuvering the neighboring counties toward a rate of acceptable and manageable outcomes, then San Mateo is turning the dial in the other direction for the benefit of their businesses and on the backs of surrounding counties. If the consensus of the region is net wrong, then we are irrationally sacrificing our regional economic health, and we are certainly also trading…

Isn't the only solution here to escape the dichotomy, and say that it's just not anyone's fault if the government doesn't land on an optimal solution to a deadly new disease?

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#45

Post by 01100011 »

I hope when this is all over we can have an apolitcal discussion and learn some lessons for next time.

I appreciate the statement, and it's nice to see the reasoning of a health official laid bare. That said, it seems to be an inconsistent message and not something I think a health official should be putting out in the midst of a politicized pandemic rife with misinformation.

I really wish we had a functioning central government to help coordinate local responses, assist with data collection and monitoring, disseminate clear information, etc, etc.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#46

Post by hnrodey »

tims33 wrote: post #36
hnrodey wrote: post #24

The article says in San Mateo county there are an estimated 8000-15000 contagious people. That’s several times higher than how many positive test results have been logged in the past 14 days. https://thecovidcomplex.com/state/california/san-mateo/summa... Disclosure: this is my website based on data from the New York Times.

I think it is a clear implications we still don't have enough testing even though CA as a whole is doing relatively well on testing. It seems like once your positive % goes above 5-10% it really means you're missing many cases.

Colorado is telling us that 2.5% of the state population is actively contagious. I don’t know the state number of positive cases off the top of my head but many counties I look at around right around 1% or less of positive cases / county population.

How can Colorado estimate at roughly 2.5x and San Mateo county is 4-7x? I’m shocked that the variance can be so great between counties.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#47

Post by plasma »

garmaine wrote: post #34
plasma wrote: post #16

It takes leadership of government, focus, sacrifice, and understanding of the citizens to fight this virus. I'm based in Australia, Victoria (population of 6m+, exceeding the 800k mentioned in the Bay Area [EDIT: San Mateo county]) and we have now had over 30 days of zero cases of coronavirus, after having a peak of 680+ per day [1]. We went into a tough lockdown, stamped out the virus, and are slowly easing restrict…

> We went into a tough lockdown, stamped out the virus Unfortunately no one here in the USA in a position of power recognizes that this should be the goal. Instead the lockdowns last only long enough for the ICU capacity to free up, then reopening the economy becomes the major goal. We need to stamp this virus out entirely, like you and your neighbors in NZ and TW have done.

There were many people (other politicians, news/press stories, etc) saying it was unachievable and unrealistic, which added more pressure to our Premier to abandon his plans because it was keeping businesses shutdown and impacting mental health.

As you mention NZ did a great job (and the PM even offered to consult to other health officials [1] in how they carried out the lockdown), such leadership should be commended and people resisting should get out of the way to let leaders lead.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-newzea...

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#48

Post by xfitm3 »

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #38
tims33 wrote: post #31

It is worth reading many of Dr Morrow's previous statements on the pandemic. This statement reflects the learnings across 10 months of fighting this virus. We really do need to some moving, congregating, and gathering in groups indoors. So on some level forcefully shutting everything down should achieve that, but we are humans and will make mistakes. So should we shut our way down into compliance or focus more on the…

> The only trick is how you convince everyone to comply. Translate that to: how do we crush the poor, destroy livelihoods and deprive children of education? Compliance, knave!

I despise lockdowns and my state won't enforce them. I am so thankful to be in a level headed state. Forcing people into poverty is just as bad or even worse as getting a virus.

In my area beyond after the initial reopening its business as normal. Everyone is having parties and celebrating, living a normal life.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#49

Post by soupson »

garmaine wrote: post #39
soupson wrote: post #26

I understand that Dr Morrow is a health professional and not a writing professional. For this reason, I would recommend that San Mateo county hire a public relations / social media expert to do some editing on this and future posts. It lacks the structure and coherent message that a public notice needs. I read it from start to finish and I’m not sure exactly what purpose it served beyond Dr. Morrow justifying his dec…

You seem to have missed the entire point of the article, as it is not announcing any new policies.

Right, no new policies, just a reiteration of existing ones to contrast what’s been announced for neighboring counties. Which itself has value. But I don’t think the rest of the justification/hedging has value to the public. In times of crises, leaders need to clearly and succinctly convey the state of the world and the policies in place to address that state. This statement does not do that. It offers explanations and logic that are more at home in a personal blog post.
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