County Deputy Health Officer Dr. Ori Tzvieli spoke to Contra Costa Supervisors this afternoon regarding COVID-19.
Below is a quick summary of the information he provided to start the meeting:
- The county is frustrated with the time it takes to get COVID-19 test results. They’re working to get it down to 48-hours or less. Supervisor Candace Andersen said it took 13 days to get her results.
- Schools (both public and private) cannot resume in-class sessions until the county is off the state’s watch list for two weeks. The county is currently on the watch list.
- Outdoor haircuts are allowed.
- They’re thinking about adding historical numbers to their COVID-19 dashboard, but are concerned about privacy issues.
- Contact sports are not allowed at this time (soccer, football, etc.)
- They don’t plan to modify the groups of 12 order. He says the smaller the groups, the better, and they won’t go above 12 until further notice. Groups of 12 are allowed for summer camps, etc.
- Nursing homes must have a separate wing of the facility for COVID patients.
- All playgrounds will remain closed until further notice.
- Drivers in a restaurant’s drive-thru must wear masks, according to the county order. Supervisor Karen Mitchoff says the county will talk about enforcement on people who don’t wear masks while picking up their food in a drive-thru.
Dr. Ori Tzvieli also took a few questions from the public.
Below are his answers to some of the questions.
- Indoor church services are not allowed in Contra Costa County.
- Motel 6 in Pittsburg was selected as a temporary homeless shelter and not the Walnut Creek Motel 6 because Pittsburg offered to sell their motel under the grant program, according to Karen Mitchoff.
- Most hospitalizations are elderly patients.
- Asymptomatic people with COVID-19 are less likely to spread COVID-19.
- They’re concerned about the mental health of county residents.
- They’re concerned about people losing businesses in the county.
- The county will not move to the next reopening phase until further notice.
- He thinks it will be a “long time” before life returns to normal in Contra Costa County.
- Protests are not a big part of transmission, because being outdoors is much less risky than being indoors.
- All playgounds will remain closed until further notice.
- They don’t plan to loosen restrictions on swimming pools.
- The current tests are more specific to the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus than previous tests.
- The release of state prisoners is a concern. Once a prisoner is released, they must quarantine for 14 days once they re-enter Contra Costa County. Services will be provided for prisoners who have no place to quarantine.
- The county gets compensated for COVID-19 tests. They try to bill insurance, and if insurance doesn’t pay, the county then goes to FEMA for the money.
- There is no documentation of a person catching COVID-19 twice.
- If you test positive for COVID-19, you will not be tested for at least 3 months.
- The county is providing personal protective equipment to nursing homes. Once a nursing home has an outbreak, they go out every 7 days to retest.
A video of today’s meeting will be posted when the county makes it available.
Another meeting is scheduled for next Thursday, July 30.
Dr. Ori Tzvieli is a breath of fresh air compared to Dr. Farnitano. He actually wrote down the questions and answered them in and honest and sympathetic way.
Blah, blah, blah, it’s all a farce. Keep working on the people to convince them otherwise.
If outdoors is extremely less risky, you can swim, get a hair cut and have groups of 12 together, and children are less susceptible, why would they keep play grounds closed? I can see keeping your 2 year old off since they put everything in their mouth, but a healthy 10 year old cant be a swing? OPEN THE PLAY GROUNDS> if parents are concerned, they can keep their kids off.
Because of multiple people touching the same surfaces, resulting in sharing of germs.
It’s not just breathing the same air, the playgrounds are closed because all the kids are touching the same surfaces: swing, slide, play structures.
0-19 age group have the 3rd highest cases in CCC in recent weeks
@Lauren
You said that walking down a road is not shared. Then why wasn’t a single protester ever walking alone?
This all complete BS.
Some answers are comtradictory.
“Protests are OK because they’re outside”
but
“Playgrounds and swimming pools are closed”
Children tend to be asymptomatic
“Asymptomatic people don’t spread disease much.”
“Playgrounds, schools and pools closed.”
Do they even hear what they say?
Playgrounds and pools are shared equipment.
Walking down a road is not.
Stop getting your information about disease from memes.
Doesn’t he realize what he said about outdoor transmission ? “Protests are not a big part of transmission because being outdoors is much less risky than being indoors “ REALLY !!! If that is the case then open the playgrounds for children to play !!! What an assinine statement . Protesters dont practice social distancing and most dont wear a mask and the ones that do are trying to hide their identity! What a bunch of BS !!! It doesnt make any sense , because their is something behind this and it isnt about the virus !!!
If protesting is not a big concern because they are outside, why can’t playgrounds be open and sanitizer dispensers available and or hand washing stations?
County lapdog does what he’s told, what else is new.
These tools and their positions all need to be eliminated. NO MORE CENTRAL PLANNING. CENTRAL PLANNING HAS KILLED MILLIONS AND WILL KILL MILLIONS MORE IF WE KEEP ALLOWING THESE CENTRAL PLANNERS TO DO AS THEY WANT!!
“If you test positive for COVID-19, you will not be tested for at least 3 months.“
That’s a strange statement. If you test positive for it then you’re stuck with it for 3 months even if you don’t have it? Why wouldn’t a positive person be retested after they weren’t sick? How does one get cleared to return to work?
@Sam They won’t retest you so can keep the “active cases” number up for however long they are told to.
They are liars! Medical facilities DO test after a positive testing.
That statement’s boggling. How else do you assess when to let someone out of quarantine or figure out if they’ve recovered?
Since they’re keeping recovery stats, either the Dr. misspoke or is incompetent. I’m wondering if what he was trying to say was, “If you’ve recovered from COVID, you won’t be tested for three months.” Which makes sense from a test-rationing standpoint, unlike what was said.
Great session. Just wondering how 150 or more go to Costco, Walmart, Target, hundreds touching the same computer equipment at Best Buy, but only few a people can go to church?
Yeah I still can not understand how people can take these people serious
Every day some yahoo so called scientist or doctor or specialist or or politicians are saying the same things over and over
The problem is it makes no sense unless your bs meter is set to off
How can an adult listen to these clowns and really believe they are telling the truth
Every single one of them says rioting does not transmit Covid
But having a few friends over to your house is severely negated by the state
Burning and rioting is ok
But do not dare to take your kid to a public park paid by your tax dollars
But if the rioters wanted to burn it down that would be allowed by the city
If you want to go to lime ridge with 75-100 people that’s ok
But lay out by a pool with a few people Is verboten by the establishment
Yep sounds silly but here we are
Grown adults being manipulated by a political party and media
Sounds a lot like China and Russia and North Korea
If you want to steal 500 dollars worth of goods from your neighbor that’s legal
If you want to support America ….well that’s not allowed in the state
The voters put us here
With raging democrats
And legal rioters
Backed my mayors and governor’s
The goal of burning the west coast and controlling trade ports is under way
Best part voters made it happen
You are under control because that’s what you voted for
Wow oh wait that’s right democrats blame others for their hypocrisy
i can read the lefts lies in the guardian or the Washington post
The release of state prisoners is a concern. Once a prisoner is released, they must quarantine for 14 days once they re-enter Contra Costa County. Yea, like that is going to happen. How about the prison quarantine them. Think about this, according to the news San Quentin is a hot spot and now they are releasing prisoners into the public with out quarantining them.
Shouldn’t we be concerned about them committing crimes against the citizens?
This is so comical. The stupidity is through the roof. I should have stopped reading after this:
“The county is frustrated with the time it takes to get COVID-19 test results. They’re working to get it down to 48-hours or less. Supervisor Candace Andersen said it took 13 days to get her results.”
Uh… when the county asks a bunch of healthy people to get tested for something they probably don’t have, then you create a backlog of tests waiting for their results and the people who are potentially sick don’t find out for 2 weeks.
Brilliant
There’s nothing like hindsight to make common sense sound sensible again
https://americacanwetalk.org/if-we–knew-then-what-we-know-now/
Not true. They test frequently once contracted. Those positive results are continually included in the results.
Call me confused… But why can’t a family have an outdoor birthday party with less than 40 people but protests are fine? And who exactly is going to enforce drivers who don’t wear a mask in a drive thru lane??
Probably because protesters, unless they are protesting masks, tend to wear masks. At a family party, with food and cake and drinks, masking might not work that well. It seems like a lot of the community spread comes from social gatherings or events like funerals.
The responses to this story by members of our community scare me. The idea that COVID-19 is somehow a farce and that the County Health Department’s attempt to share information is politically driven is absurd! I cannot understand those people who call for less restrictive protocols while the number of positive cases in our community are rising. Even more baffling is their argument citing that if protests were allowed then whatever social gathering they feel they are missing should also be allowed. We are in the middle of a pandemic and people are dying! Our priority should be to do whatever we can to end the spread of the virus. Wear a mask, practice social distancing, better to be overly cautious (if that’s what you belive it is) than to have any more lives lost. This should not be a political, anti-government or conspiracy theory kind of conversation. I hope everyone can take a step back from the argument and just be safe.