How Santa Clara County Set Itself Up for COVID-19 Recovery

Coronavirus apparently hit Santa Clara County earlier than nearly anywhere in the United States, with officials confirming this week that the county had the first known COVID-19 death nationwide, a 57-year-old San Jose woman who died on Feb. 6.

But while other parts of the United States have since exploded in numbers of coronavirus cases, with just shy of 900,000 known infections as of April 23, including roughly 50,000 deaths, Santa Clara County has kept its numbers relatively low, with a data dashboard set up by the county showing just 1,987 total cases and 95 deaths that day.

With cases leveling off, local officials have shifted their thinking to what comes next, with the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voting April 21 to formulate “a comprehensive recovery plan laying out exactly how and when to begin peeling back restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus,” according to Palo Alto Online.

“Public health officials caution that the county is not out of the woods yet despite the good news,” reporter Kevin Forestieri noted, “But the focus has nevertheless shifted away from the immediate disaster response toward what to do next.”

Officials understood that it won’t be an easy or quick recovery, just as a five-week-old stay-at-home order had brought life in the South Bay almost to a standstill, while almost certainly helping to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases and save lives.

Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody first issued the stay-at-home order on March 16, three days before Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a similar order for all of California. Cody’s order, which the county updated March 31, remains in place through May 3. Palo Alto Online noted that Cody said earlier this month that she could not loosen guidelines until certain  hospitals could treat anyone who needs care and staff had sufficient personal protective equipment, or PPE, for their work. “We’re still probably at the beginning of what is going to be a very long marathon here in the county, across the region and indeed across the country,” Cody told reporters on Tuesday But with unemployment for the county projected to soar as high as 15.3 percent in May, according to the Mercury News, it’s been incumbent on the supervisors to take some kind of action toward recovery.

For the supervisors, what to do next about coronavirus in Santa Clara County includes detailing necessary levels of staffing and funding to increase testing, contract tracing, and disease surveillance, Palo Alto Online noted. The board will also look to business leaders, health officials, and local governments, among others, for its recovery plan, the site noted. There was also some questioning of the metrics for lifting the stay-at-home order, with Supervisor Susan Ellenberg balking at a suggestion from county staff that PPE or hospital availability numbers could be a moving target.

“Put yourself in the shoes of a construction worker or a waitress or a small business owner, counting down to May 3 to potentially no longer be laid off through the shelter-in-place order,” Ellenberg said, according to Palo Alto Online. "How can we justify adding to that uncertainty of simply not knowing how close we are or when we might get there?

But she also acknowledged the unknowns that continue to confront officials responding to coronavirus, saying, "I am a member of this board, one of five in Santa Clara County out of nearly 2 million, and I don't know the answer to this.”

For more information on what Santa Clara County is doing, visit the county’s COVID-19 information site.