Contra Costa County Deputy Health Officer Dr. Tom Warne spoke to Contra Costa Supervisors on Thursday regarding COVID-19 in the county.
Dr. Warne answered many questions during the two hour Zoom call.
Below is a quick summary of what he said (full video above):
- Many of the outbreaks are due to family and religious gatherings.
- They’re mostly concerned about gatherings where people from different homes gather, including inside bars, restaurants, churches and family gatherings.
- Protests have not caused recent increases of COVID-19 cases in Contra Costa County.
- There is guidance for protesters. They require distancing, limiting the size to 100 people. They encourage protesters to follow the guidance and separate into smaller groups.
- They will be asking people to get the COVID-19 vaccine when its available.
- County Health orders prevented about 4,000 deaths and 21,000 hospitalizations in Contra Costa County.
- A small number of hospitalizations are from people who live outside the county (4 people with COVID).
- Skilled-nursing facility staff is tested every 30 days.
- 62 of 88 deaths have been residents of skilled-nursing facilities.
- Current COVID-19 death rate is 7.7 per 100,000 people in Contra Costa County. Annual flu death rate is about .8 – 4.2 per 100,000 people for the flu in Contra Costa County (they ask people to get vaccinated against the flu).
- Higher cases in younger population because younger people are out working, engaging and interacting.
- They’re working with the county office of education on a plan to reopen schools.
- Pre-teens (children under 13) don’t play a big role in transmission of the virus.
- It’s unknown when indoor dining, gyms and other businesses that were set to open on July 1 and July 15 will open.
- Has not ruled out closing businesses that were allowed to reopen. They will pay attention to data.
- They’re conducting contact tracing to find out where cases are coming from.
For the full question/answer session, please watch the video above.
93 comments
Protests have not caused a spike? Really?
Thank you for posting the video and summary, Mr. Mayor.
They will continue to deny that protesting doesnt cause new case! Oh but churches and businesses do. Ummm we are not dumb – come on Contra Costa County people are wise to what’s happening now.
POST DELETED
Please Note: Users who use multiple names will be deleted. Please choose one name so others can easily chat with you.
POST DELETED
Please Note: Users who use multiple names will be deleted. Please choose one name so others can easily chat with you.
The CCC Ad Hoc Covid-19 meeting on 7/02 they admitted that they can not keep up with contact tracing with the surge of positives…how can they KNOW that protests have not contributed? And, if they are using the death/hospitalization models from March, those prevented statistics are bogus!
So 70% of deaths, and a lot of cases, are from nursing homes and assisted care facilities. Those people are unable to attend a worship service or attend a family gathering (my mother lives in one). So blaming Churches (but not Mosques, mind you) is a red herring. It is a lie, hiding a blatant hatred and bias against people of faith.
Young people attending parties (no bars open in Co Co) and protests are responsible for the increase SO GO AFTER THEM and leave the rest of us alone and with our Constitutional rights intact.
@ Pyrrhus – except that church services are not held indoors. They can be held outside, max 100 people, social distancing, masks, and the governor just forbade singing, chanting or responsive reading. So no, services, if held with these restrictions, can’t be the culprit.
On the other hand, protests are mass gatherings of thousands of people, many NOT wearing masks, with lots of shouting, not social distancing, etc. While also outside, they have much more potential for causing spikes. Except, that maybe many come from other counties, so if in two weeks they get sick, there would be no telling if they caught it during the protest and of course they would not be counted in CCC, resulting in “no spike from protests”.
@pryyhus:
You know nothing obviously! Yes this has ABSOLUTELY gotten political. Is it a real virus? Absolutely, but no more bigger threat than regular flu virus.
Bars and indoor restaurants weren’t allowed to open in CCC yet. Indoor meeting anything isn’t open here yet. They were set to allow to open July 1, but they pushed it. Educate yourself please. Churches are held 100 people, BTW which they monitor how many people come, and are OUTDOORS! The information they feed us do you ever question any of it, or are you just blindly following along? The information from this guy doesn’t make sense. Most deaths are from nursing home facilities, there are 14 nursing home outbreaks, YET, the most cases are coming from Churches and restaurants? Wrong. 55-60% of new cases are young people. What age groups were all the protestors? Sure wasn’t seeing anyone over 40 out there. And YES, protesting has been happening of thousands in northern CA for weeks: people drive to different cities, Oakland, San Fran, maybe even down south the LA to protest as well. The younger ones aren’t working, they are still getting their massive unemployment checks, so they continue to protest because they are all “woke”. Doctors, scientist and medical people have all come out with information as well to deny the crap that’s being fed to us. What country does CA, AZ, Texas border? Florida is a hot spot for immigrations too. Wake up. They also add 16 presumptive cases to 1 positive test result. Wake up. They make people in places like group homes, homeless shelters get tested multiple times. They are doubling numbers up from people who come here from other counties. Look at a newspaper and see the massive cases in southern CA and across the coast. Why do you think that is? Wake up!!
Not the real Badger. Will the real Badger please stand up! 🎇
Protests limited to 100 people. Right. The protesters will adhere to that. Say, I hear there is going to be a protest in Martinez on Sunday and thousands are expected. Not 100, thousands.
In my opinion, there won’t be thousands of protesters. I think that many “protesters” attend, not for the message but for the party atmosphere and and excitement of being part of a large crowd. Some, I’m sure are becoming burned out with so many gatherings. We’ll see.
Another issue might be parking. Anyone who has taken the train or had jury duty knows what parking is like downtown, even at night and weekends.
And they will not be six feet apart. The Contra Costa County Deputy Health Officer obviously has a rather low IQ.
They have the same guidance for churches as they have for protests, but one does not cause outbreaks while the other does? Really? Protestors must all be coming from outside the county then…
Protests are held outdoors. Churches indoors. Virus spreads exponentially indoors. Simple as that. It’s not some secret agenda. I’m a Christian and there’s no way I’d step foot in a crowded church right now.
Protests are outside, churches are inside. Pretty simple, really. Why don’t churches hold services in their parking lots?
Protesters are not six feet apart screaming and spewing the big bad virus droplets through their masks. Being outside has nothing to do with it. They are literally in each others faces.
@ Me & LoveMyCity – CCC is not allowing indoor services, so no, that cannot be the issue. I don’t know what you people are talking about. They were supposed to start indoor services 7/1, but that is now postponed indefinitely. Our church still meets online and for communion services outside, socially distanced, masks on, no more than 100 people (there usually are less) and the service lasts 30 minutes.
Nope, churches in CCC cannot be blamed for this.
@ Me and Love
Church services are NOT allowed in side unless you keep it under 12 people … So it is NOT simple. Church services are in parking lots. Check out the Catholic Church on Gregory on Sunday morning and the Church on Center in Pacheco. Both are in parking lots. People are in cars or in lawn chairs 10-15 feet apart from each other, I know cause I am there!
Protests are on the street, no masks for the most part, no social distancing … kinda hard to do that when you are busting out the window of a car on Hwy 680 or spitting in the officers face.
Protests didnt cause a spike, but there was a spike in young people because they were out “interacting”….. you mean like protesting??? You’re canceled dr. Tom
Dr is an idiot .. beginning to think the entire Health Department is full of fools!
Family gathering caused the spikes, but not protests. They are so full of you-know-what, they must wear waders to get into the office.
The responses show just how corrupt our CoCo County Health Department is these days. They are carrying Gavin’s water. I’d like to see the data that led them to say “protests have not caused recent increases in COVID-19”. The Doctor goes on to state that “people in their 30’s make up 90% of the COVID-19- cases in Contra Costa County”. Really Doc. you expect us to believe these people of prime age to protest had nothing to do with the spike. If you do I have a bridge for sale.
Tell you what I have ruled out Doc. People like yourself telling what and where I can do things, and what I can not do. As least until you can make some simple sense.
Sweden had no lockdown and their death rate has bottomed out at under 6000 for a population of 10 million.
The quacks at the CCC health department want us to believe that over 4000 would have died with our population of 1 million.
3 of 4 deaths came from nursing homes but they’re saying church attendance was a major factor increasing the spread.
Because it’s riotous church attendance that has erupted all over the country? Right?
The crazier the propaganda the more desperate they seem
They have no power without your assent. Don’t give it to them.
What they also dont tell you is this: When a person tests positive – they are treated and then retested. If their test comes back positive again after treatment – then that second positive result is then added to the “new” cases, but in reality it’s the same person being tested twice. Thus giving a false rise in “new” cases.
@Pamela,
You are correct…the numbers are convoluted. The CCC Health Services Guidance for businesses when an employee tests positive for Covid-19 states: When your employee’s isolation period is complete, and they are no longer experiencing symptoms, it is not our guidance to require a negative test in order to return to work since the test can be positive for weeks even though the person is no longer infectious.
You should consult your business’s legal and health advisors when implementing any part of this guidance.
Why would a business owner not require another test for liability reasons?? These numbers most certainly include repeats both positives and negatives!
Once again the people of ccc are being told a load of crap. These violent protestors are the main reason. Once again ccc and California promote violence and then lie to it’s people. Vote them all out know or it will be late. Let the kids back in school without restrictions, that’s what the science says.
Interesting…
Dr. Farnitano who is director of the health board said that singing in church was banned because “particles can go through the mask while projecting your voice” during the recent adhoc townhall meeting. How does this not happen when protesters are shouting and chanting? While yes, most church is done indoors; most church you aren’t shoulder to shoulder with hundreds even thousands of people in a protest, shouting and chanting.
Another talking head spewing garbage, and assuming we the people are too stupid to see through it.
The reason they can say that no cases arose from protests is because they are not allowed to ask about that while doing contract tracing. Convenient, right? They can ask if you attended church, visited with friends, etc…but not about protests.
“There is guidance for protesters. They require distancing, limiting the size to 100 people.” Uh, there are numerous videos of the protests which clearly show these “guiedelines” are not being followed.
Go away Dr. Warne.
Take a look at the 2nd to last bullet point. I’ll bet my $1 that’s a hint at what’s to come. Husband and I were just talking about that possibility/a revised SIP order yesterday, and agreed it was likely given surge in cases.
It’s a pity, too, because business will then only be punished … Again … For something they aren’t causing. As the post states, many of the outbreaks are instead tied to family and religious gatherings.
Get your hair done asap, as well as anything else that will be banned.
So if all the yelling, cheering and crowding of protesting doesn’t spread the virus then why are we not allowing sporting events? Obviously this is more nonsense spilling from the upper orifice of another government clown. Go back to your cubicle Dr. Tom.
What a bunch of complete BS. Going to church causes you to get sick, but marching around screaming at the police and harassing law abiding people does not? Our health department is a cohort of marxist cowards.
People are waking up to this scam Having thousands protesting is ok Oh yea this isn’t political!
OK, when making an emphatic statement that Protestors/Looters did not cause recent increases, how about science, data, and evidence?
Zero credibility. We have been lied to. Recall Newsom.
And the biggest joke played on the world continues. Masked protesters by the hundreds and thousands- YES!, masked (singing) church goers, masked business workers, masked students, masked concert goers – NO!
The Deputy Health Director should have remained silent and just let people assume she is an idiot. Instead, she went and opened up her mouth and proved to everyone that she is indeed an idiot… or a propagandist.
Methinks she doth protest too much about protests not spreading Xi Coronavirus. However, if she is correct, then we need to open schools, restaurants, beaches, Church, etc…because the crisis is over.
It was just yesterday the Water Cooler question was, “Are we being told the entire truth about COVID-19?”
These so-called experts must truly believe we are stupid, they are more than lying to us, they are insulting our intelligence.
Children under 13 don’t play a big part in transmission? Then OPEN THE SCHOOLS
The Newspeak editors will remove any reference to children not spreading the virus shortly. Forget he ever said it!
So where do the facts and figures for “prevented 4,000 deaths and 21,000 hospitalizations” come from ? Since you cannot prove a negative, as he should well know, these figures are meaningless. The Medical (?) BS is getting pretty deep.
My guess is that he pulled those numbers directly from his butt.
She pulled it out of her … umm .. thin air.
Prevented 4,000 deaths in CCC, it is getting pretty deep here.
large gatherings of people from different households causes more infection.. protests(which are a large gathering of people from different households) does not cause infection. Pick one.
“Protests have not caused recent increases of COVID-19 cases in Contra Costa County.
There is guidance for protesters. They require distancing, limiting the size to 100 people. They encourage protesters to follow the guidance and separate into smaller groups.”
Whaaaaat? For an educated man, those were the most ridiculously stupid statements I’ve heard since COVID reared its ugly face! First, how does he know where they contracted the illness? Could they have contracted it from someone they associate with that attended the protests? He has no possible idea.
Secondly, and even more ridiculous than his first statement, I’m sure they followed every one of the suggested guidelines (NOT)! Guess he forgot to tell those that took over Walnut Creek! We all witnessed it on the news when they took over the freeway. Hmmmmm. They weren’t practicing either of the good doctor’s guidelines at that point!
It’s idiotic statements like this that make the public challenge everything released by the state!
That statement was made to appease the protestors and those thinking about protesting. The last thing they want is a riot at the county health office, and that’s exactly what they’ll get if they say anything the tolerant and peaceful left doesn’t like.
” tolerant and peaceful left doesn’t like.”
That’s funny! Yep appease all those tolerant and peaceful protestors in Martinez on Sunday! Unfortunately, they’re going to get their riot!
They’re expecting 2000 to 3000 people to protest in downtown Martinez on Sunday. Let’s see how well they follow the good doctor’s guidelines! Groups of no more than 100? Yeah!
While I don’t discount COVID, do you think maybe the ease of testing now, as opposed to a month or two ago, may have an impact on the huge increases of positive cases? In the beginning, you couldn’t find a testing location. The only cases we knew about were ones that went to the hospital. Now, many are testing positive that never even show up at the hospital. I would bet there is a correlation here!
Got a laugh at the failing green screen CG at the beginning. Might be more effective to use an animation of an attacking Covid-19 virus in the background to make it a little sci-fi. 😀
Start at the 15 min mark. The doctor gives a definition of Covid death. Listen very carefully. Even per the CDC death certificate guidelines it states that they list Covid on Line 2 and actual cause of death on Line 1. CCHS is becoming more and more ridiculous and are so blind. It’s becoming a political game.
https://youtu.be/RYTSYO2Uppg
Absolutely, positively have no Confidence in these people when they so blatantly deny that protesting in mobs of people, packed together like sardines does not spread the virus but church going does. “Have you been out protesting?” is definitely not one the questions asked when I go to appointments so how is it being monitored? I am so tired of this politically motivated divisiveness. It is no wonder Covid 19 is not controlled. Illness does not respond to any particular political party or ideology.
I seriously Doubt the miracle vaccine will be on a volunteer basis.
By the way: You have no recourse if that vaccine causes you damage, you sue the Government and Not the Manufacturer. Good luck with that.
Save your protests for when they mandate the vaccine.
The vaccine is suspicious just like the origin of this virus. Interesting that bill gates, avid supporter and sponsor of the new world order, is also a huge advocate and sponsor of the vaccine against it. Watch, they will make the vaccine mandatory if you want your ‘normal’ life back as it was before covid. No more social distancing, no more mask, no more covid rules, you can go to the movies and restaurants, all you have to do is take this little vaccine
I think this quote is wrong?? Current COVID-19 death rate is 7.7 per 100,000 people in Contra Costa County. Because on the CCCHD website it says ”
1.4 per 100,000″. Can you clarify? I got my info from here: https://covid19.ca.gov/roadmap-counties/#track-data
Do the math – divide the number of deaths (88) by the population (1.1 million) and multiply by 100,000 you get 7.7
WCreeker
Ok
88 divided by 1,100,000 equals. 0.00008.
0.00008 x 100,000 = 8
I rounded off the population number .. …it’s all close!
I do not understand. I know a nurse who caught Covid not at work, but from one of her children. A child came to school sick but didn’t know it was Covid. That was right before we closed the schools. So, I’m not sure about children not being spreaders. I mean. we catch stuff from them any other year. This doesn’t make sense to me.
The number of infections per se should not be concerning, but increases in “hospitalizations” should — assuming we have the answer to the following questions:
1. How many of the hospitalizations are due to COVID-19 symptoms?
2. How many of the hospitalizations, if any, are persons infected in Mexico and presenting themselves in El Centro for care and transported elsewhere in California for treatment?
3. How many of the hospitalizations are for patients who have been admitted for reasons other than COVID-19 symptoms (e.g. trauma, other disease) but who have tested positive for COVID-19 without currently presenting symptoms?
If #1 is all or nearly all of the 68 currently listed as COVID-19 hospitalizations then there is cause to believe that CCC is having more severe illness than previously, but if any substantial number of hospitalizations are due to #2 or #3 then CCC is not experiencing a greater epidemic than earlier.
Also, 62/88 (70%) of COVID-19 deaths are amongst residents of long term care facilities. This does not appear to be the result of church attendance and family gatherings.
Good luck with that common-sense analysis. They are never going to release statistics that they cannot interpret to fit their narrative.
Wake up people – We are being hoodwinked.
Show me facts to prove family & church gatherings are causing the spikes and not the demonstrators.
I call it BS – just how stupid do they think we are??
They think we are dumb enough to vote for Democrats.
Oh, we are awake and have been aWOKE. We see through their lies while they stand there and regurgitate this socialist propaganda. Does their incompetence have no bounds?
The Democrat protests (and lioting + rooting associated with) are directly responsible for the spike, the timeline syncs up perfectly, also note the massive shift in average age of Covid-19 positive, it went from over 60 to now being 20-29; IE the simpletons who were marching and rioting several weeks ago.
This is bad comedy. This is a farce.
Science means nothing when in the hands of politicians, ideologues and Communists.
I am ok with people protesting while wearing a mask. Several have stated how do we know more than the medical experts?
Open browser
Type google
Type protests
Press enter
Choose images
You can also chose videos.
I see 10’s of thousands all over protesting, screaming, yelling WITHOUT masks. Now do you think they attend family gatherings as well?
Seriously???!! How stupid do they think we are???? Family gatherings and churches are the ones that caused the surges? And not the thousands of protestors that were screaming, yelling and spitting on people while they broke into stores downtown without wearing masks….hmmmm…yeah, you’re right … it must have been my church where all 100 of us are wearing masks and sitting six feet apart … yeah, right!
Hey is either skewing or misreporting the data. Time to recall Dr. F. He is either incompetent or misguided. Most outbreaks that are deadly are in nursing homes not family or religious gatherings. Look at the data! His death rate number excludes asymptotic carriers which some epidemiologists estimate at 25%. He is either again- incompetent or misguided. Time to take his power away!
At this point I don’t believe anything they say.
All of their data they are using should be public, from day 1. They use public funds they have no right to conceal ANY DATA they are using to make decisions. They must provide the data and where it came from, the methods they used to extract that data and how they came to the decisions they’re making.
When this is over, we need to eliminate the county health officer. We don’t need centralized health control. It’s BS
You cannot count the nursing home patients in your percentages statistics. This is incorrect logic. It is like putting the Covid Virus in a petri dish (the nursing homes) & wondering why the replication of the virus is so virulent. Everyone sick, frail & debilitated & you throw a virus into the mix??? That is definitely not a fair assessment or comparison, but, there is no logic to what those in “power” with this virus are doing.
https://thepoliticsofduh.com/2020/07/09/are-deaths-coming-from-south-of-the-border/
Thank you for the link, Toni! Very interesting correlation…
uh oh it appears china is in control of amazon as well
Amazon tells employees to delete TikTok immediately—then takes it back
Left one thing out of my above comment. ~~~If you erase the nursing home deaths (which is not an example of real life) we are left with 26 deaths in this community of 1.2 million people.
Precisely. Closing schools and Main Street does not save lives in nursing homes, but it does take futures and lives. Can the county demonstrate that it is saving lives, not just trading lives?
Remember, folks, church goers are probably more likely to answer truthfully to contact tracing questions than persons NOT following county orders, e.g. protestors.
Just something to keep in mind when interpreting data.
Hmmm some news reporter should do a freedom of information request on his emails.
I just happen to have the email trail from alameda county health about how protesting is a requirement and the need to find data to ensure that it is ok.
So I have no doubt ccc is doing the same.
They can’t stop the protest so they might as well pretend it’s not doing any harm
“Protests have not caused recent increases of COVID-19 cases in Contra Costa County.”
That supposes, participants in protests are not from outside Contra Costa County. Sunday’s protest in Martinez will be attracting not only participants from outside the county but outside state as well. An since there is no checking of legal government issued IDs, I’d call specifically worded statement above worthless.
I don’t believe that the protests have not added to the count:
“But there’s no way for officials to concretely determine whether cases spread at protests since contact tracers do not identify cases that have stemmed from public spaces.“We don’t have any way of tracking that information,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Monday about the difficulty in pinpointing the exact path of transmission from a public areas,”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/california/story/2020-06-15/california-coronavirus-cases-top-150-000-and-thats-not-counting-anyone-from-the-protests%3f_amp=true
I have heard and read numerous articles stating such.
Since worship and family gatherings can contact trace, we will find spread. With protests there is little chance to contact trace, so that spread goes undetected. We need consistent guidelines no matter what the activity is. In Mighigan protests against the lock down were deemed dangerous, now they are not?
Why are folks so obsessed with protesters? Forget about it!! Just follow the rules and you will be fine. Stay away from people. (Six feet)
People want to know if the rules are working. If protestors don’t follow the rules and are OK but worshippers follow the rules and are NOT OK then something must be done to amend the rules.
Defund the koolaid drinking delusional popcorn.
There seems to be some confusion about the current Contra Costa regulations. Church services for up to 100 people inside have been allowed here since June 16.
IF the building is large enough to accommodate that many with social distancing.
Couple that with the 600 % increase in firearms and ammunition sales….i think people are seeing this coming and heavily preparing
Blah, blah, blah and more blah. The regurgitation of lies continues in order to propagate the global socialist agenda. The people are aWOKE while the puppet ‘leaders’ are too blind to see or refuse to see.
#RT
Have you ever read anything pandemic-related outside of paranoid unsourced online rants? What IS the “global socialist agenda”? No need to answer – researching lots of information on ALL sides shows that ‘idea’ as ridiculous as it sounds
Yea, maybe the new world order idea sounds ridiculous but you’ll get to experience it sooner than later. It’s interesting to see it start to unfold
I want to thank Nany Pelosi for our stimulus check. I used my money to add new firearms to our household. I wanted to support my local business.
Our church as well as virtually ALL churches in the area are ON-LINE!
To characterize churches as contributing to the problem is disingenuous and misleading! It also seems as a gratuitous slander against church goers…
To deny the obvious in stating that the protesters have not been the major contributing factor in the Covid-19 spike is MORE deception and misleading propaganda!
Seriously, do you think we’re so dull as to accept this nonsense? We were NOT raised on “Common Core” curriculum…
“Brought to you by In-Shape”. They sure blitzed the calls, each one pretty much saying the same thing so one rep would have done. 😀
Comments are closed.