State COVID-19 help coming soon, but Stanislaus County once again waits for answers
State experts could be in Stanislaus County as soon as next week to help local officials get control of the spread of the new coronavirus, which is surging here and throughout the rest of the San Joaquin Valley and disproportionately affecting the valley’s Latino residents.
This is part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Monday announcement that the state was sending more help to the eight-county valley, which stretches from Stockton to Bakersfield.
“Hopefully there will be boots on the ground supporting the counties next week,” said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman with The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, in a Wednesday phone interview. “... We want to make sure we get additional resources on the ground to help these communities.”
Newsom said the state is providing $52 million to the eight counties to help with “disease investigation, contact tracing and quarantine efforts,” according to a news release. The state also will send three unified support teams to the valley. The teams will work with local officials, businesses and the community to “evaluate on-the-ground needs and develop strategies and interventions to address them.”
Stanislaus officials in the dark
Stanislaus County Office of Emergency Services spokesman Raj Singh said Wednesday local officials are grateful for the extra help. “That’s wonderful news,” he said. “We will take any support, guidance, assistance they can offer us.”
But he said local officials also are frustrated. Singh said since the beginning of the pandemic, the governor’s office has not given local officials any notice before Newsom makes an announcement affecting Stanislaus County. Singh said local officials learn about the governor’s initiatives during his news conferences.
“We’re hearing it at the same time as you are during the press conference,” Singh said. “This has been (true) from Day One of the pandemic.”
Singh said it then can take days after an announcement before local officials can get the details and specifics about how these initiatives will work. For instance, Singh said, officials don’t know how much of the $52 million is coming to Stanislaus County and how that money can be spent.
Still waiting for details from state officials
Singh said around noon Thursday that county OES officials still did not have specifics about the governor’s initiative.
Ferguson, the Cal OES spokesman, referred questions about the money to the California Department of Finance. A Finance Department spokesman had not responded to an email by the newspaper’s deadline Thursday.
Ferguson disputed the claim that the state is not keeping local officials informed. For instance, he said, the state held a conference call Sunday for San Joaquin Valley leaders regarding the governor’s Monday announcement.
Singh said Stanislaus County’s public health officer, Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, was on that call but said there was no mention about sending three teams to the valley or the $52 million.
Ferguson said Cal OES will contact Stanislaus County OES about improving communications. But he said California is in the midst of a rapidly evolving statewide crisis. “This is a really challenging pandemic,” he said. “Things are happening quickly. But we want to make sure people have the information they need. But the governor needs to respond quickly ... .”
Singh said Stanislaus County needs help getting faster COVID-19 test results to help stop the spread of the disease. He said it can take about week for results to come back, a week in which someone who is positive but without symptoms can infect others. (COVID-19 is the disease caused by the new coronavirus.)
But he repeated one of the county’s main themes: More people need to wear face coverings in public and practice physical distancing. Singh said if half of the community would do that for two weeks, the county would see a big drop in its COVID-19 cases.
Too many think COVID is a ‘hoax, a scam, not real’
“That is one of the biggest messages we are trying to push,” he said. “It might be because of the demographics of the Central Valley, but a lot of people in our community and the Valley believe this is a hoax, a scam, not real, and they don’t want to abide by the simple rules of wearing a face covering and physical distancing.”
Singh said many of the area’s COVID-19 cases can be linked to family members and friends who are not part of the same household gathering for parties, barbecues and other social events while not practicing those simple rules.
When asked why the county and its cities don’t cite people for not following the rules, as some some California cities and counties are doing, Singh said that is a question for law enforcement and that officials are trying to gain compliance through education.
Newsom said his initiative in the eight Valley counties is similar to what the state is doing in Imperial Country. In his news release, he said that included increasing hospitals’ surge capacity, operating an 80-bed alternate care site, and helping public health with disease investigation and contract tracing as well as managing outbreaks at businesses.
The news release said as a result of these and other efforts, Imperial County’s “14-day case rate dropped 63 percent, from 836 cases per 100,000 to 308 cases per 100,000 people.”
On Thursday, the state reported that Stanislaus County had 253 new positive test results, bringing its total to 8,745. On Wednesday, the county reported five more deaths, bringing that total to 103.
This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
