Earlier today, Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman took on media questions on epidemic county management: Why haven’t public contact-tracing figures increased in the last few weeks? How is his department handling the workload associated with the rise of new cases? Do mortuary workers get vaccinated? Other workplace outbreaks in Bryce support-living facilities? Will his office announce the names of the dead?
(Towards this last question, Hoffman answers with a quick “no”, although he may inadvertently be on technology. In the past, coroner’s office fees – not public health – have published information in question.)
Rough transcript above video, below.
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Lost Cost Outpost asks, “Can you tell us what’s going on with the‘ transmission type ’statistics on the county dashboard? In the last 30 days, 770 new cases of COVID have been confirmed in the county. During the same period, only 60 cases due to contact or travel have been officially dropped. Meanwhile, the number of cases listed as “under investigation” has ballooned to 768 – more than the number of known, active cases in the county. How can the dashboard classify just 14 more infections through ‘known case contact’ between December 1 and now when there have been about 70 cases of grenade outbreaks in the same period? ”
That’s a great question. Really everyone is happy to see and use it on the dashboard.
We can clarify this. So on December 1st, we moved on to a state-based system called Cal Connect, which is really a way to streamline contact transactions and investigations. Of course during that training and transition period we got away from some of the other work we were doing, including how we can track all of this and put it on the dashboard.
So my understanding is that it is a backlog of 600 some cases on which we are working to get that information. We know the information, we’ll just store it and put it in the right place so we can put it on the dashboard, and that’s happening over the next week.
What I will say is that you know, yes, we know what most of our cases are, they are still the vast majority contact a known case. Yet the strangeness of the travel-related case and the assembling of the firm is another area that we know most of our cases come from. So, see that update soon is something we’ve been working on since last week and will move on to next week.
The Lost Cost Outpost asks, “What does public health do to detect disease progression in people actively fighting the virus? What resources do you need to bring in to monitor active cases? With more than 500 known, active cases, do you think Public Health is incapable of doing this job to the degree it has done or the degree it has done before? “
Yeah Al that sounds pretty crap to me, Looks like Al that sounds crap to me, Looks like Al that sounds crap to me, Looks like Al that sounds crap to me, Looks like Al that sounds crap to me. So our first role is really identifying the cases of COVID-19 and we get it directly from the state and the systems that monitor the laboratory results and our teams contact people who are positive for COVID-19, they visit them and They find out what kind of risks the disease poses. They give a lot of information about how they can be separated at home, who their contacts are, and also help define the period that they are infected and have been in contact with others. And they provide information on how they can get medical care, but I will make it clear that we do not provide any medical care to the case. We encourage people to seek the care of their doctor or if they need emergency services. The next part of it is really to identify the contacts and get those people on quarantine. We did a lot of it when the number of cases in the caseload was low. We had to give it up and just a month ago we started talking to people about the message that we would ask low risk cases to contact their own contacts and give them information about the quarantine. So we are right now. We continue to contact each case involving COVID-19 and we continue to inform them about COVID-19, about isolation and how to keep their contacts separate and we will find contacts in high risk settings.
The Times-Standard asks, “What guidance has the state provided for vaccinating mortuary employees who have been exposed to COVD positive b?
Yes, I haven’t seen specific guidance about people working with COVID positive organizations, but you know we have guidance for three levels in Phase 1A and those three tiers include Tier 3 laboratory workers, so I guess we’ll put Tire them with them. We’ll investigate and see into it, but I work in the lab like anyone in the same class. So stay tuned for that guide and we’ll let people know if we find anyone more specific on it.
The Times-Standard asks, “How long is the virus able to pass with the virus after death?”
I have to say I don’t know the answer. I don’t know if there is any study or solid evidence about it. We have recommendations to use PPE with a body that is not positive and all those people should be proficient in it and use full PPE.
The Times-Standard asks, “Are any other Bryce facilities in Hamblatt County affected by the outbreak in Grenada?”
Therefore, we do not know of any other outbreak in any other facility by that company in Humboldt County. Many of our skilled nursing facilities and supportive living facilities have had cases in workers, but they have not erupted. So there has been no other outbreak in Humboldt County.
The Times-Standard asks, “Have any Grenada residents or staff received vaccinations?”
No, they are not. We are working on a plan right now to start vaccinations. Once their quarantine has passed, we will work on it and all the skilled nursing facilities in the next round.
The Times-Standard asks, “Earlier, the names of the deaths related to Seaweed-19 were released. More names will be published at any time. If not, why not? ”
Public Health does not release the names of the deceased from Covid-19 and we have no plans to do so in the future.
