At an April 29 press conference, Dr. Sara Cody defended her decision to push for Bay Area-wide shelter-in-place orders. Courtesy Santa Clara County Department of Public Health
In a Q and A with John Woolfolk of the Mercury News, Santa Clara County Health Officer Sara Cody urged continued caution to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from exploding.
“Cody led the Bay Area’s push in mid-March for the country’s first ‘shelter-in- place’ order to control the coronavirus pandemic,” Woolfolk writes. “It’s kept us largely confined to our homes, successfully averted a health system meltdown, and saved lives, but at mounting cost to our livelihoods.”
The veteran reporter pressed Dr. Cody to explain “why the region’s rigid approach is still necessary.”
Cody insisted that the strict orders saved lives, and said she does not intent to “squander the sacrifices everyone’s made.”
“Shelter-in-place is not without costs,” she said. “However, if there were not shelter-in place and we let the virus rip through the population, that is also harmful.
“If we lift too soon, there’s no reason to think we wouldn’t have exponential spread. Our whole population is susceptible and at risk.”
Read the Q&A: “Health officer won’t ‘squander sacrifices.’”
Also on the Mercury New site is an in-depth story by Julia Prodis Sulek about the public health team run by Dr. Sara Cody, who describes her as “the Bay Area’s Anthony Fauci, Santa Clara County’s most ‘essential’ employee, the one who banished us from Sharks hockey games, canceled her own daughter’s high school prom—and eventually shut in 6 million Bay Area residents in six neighboring counties to slow the stampede of a deadly pandemic.”
