Stanislaus won’t have its own face mask rules. Will the state order flatten the curve?
Stanislaus County won’t have its own face-covering order to combat the local spread of coronavirus disease and a sharp rise in hospitalizations.
That’s because Gov. Gavin Newsom’s face mask requirement went into effect statewide on Thursday. County residents, with a few exceptions, are expected to wear face masks when they leave home.
The county’s top health officials started to develop a mandatory face mask order as one way to reduce a distressing spike in coronavirus infections, which has followed the end of stay-home orders in the past month.
The proposal for a local mask order was dropped when the mandatory state order was issued Thursday, said Royjindar Singh, a county spokesman. “If the state has one out, the county does not need an order,” Singh said. “Whatever is in the state order does apply to Stanislaus County.”
Though the reopening might make it seem like the first phase of outbreak is over, the county is posting numbers never seen since the first coronavirus cases were reported here March 11.
An additional 69 cases were reported Friday, which followed 82 new cases Thursday and a record 102 on Sunday, June 14. In an update Friday, the hospital data, which is closely watched by state health officials, showed 93 patients confirmed or suspected to be sickened by COVID-19 illness in the county’s five hospitals.
The 56 confirmed COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized included 21 in intensive care units.
Stanislaus County has added 383 confirmed coronavirus infections in the past week, pushing the total count to 1,473. The county’s death toll remained at 35. Test results were 9.3 percent positive in the past seven days, higher than the state’s threshold of 8 percent, according to data on the county’s dashboard.
County Sheriff Jeff Dirkse and Modesto Police Chief Galen Carroll said last week they won’t actively enforce the mask order.
But the county and its cities could suffer a worse fate if a combination of masks and social distancing — or something — does not flatten the curve of disease transmission, Singh and county leaders suggested.
A return to stay-home orders and business closures would again throw people out of work and starve the county and cities of revenue for public services.
“If we don’t flatten our curve soon, we will have to start closing up sectors,” Singh said in a text Friday after fielding questions from The Modesto Bee.
County Supervisor Terry Withrow said there is growing concern the state could impose a shutdown on the county. Stanislaus is one of 11 counties being monitored by the state health department because of elevated disease transmission or an increase in hospitalizations.
“I am not as concerned about the new cases, just because we are doing more testing,” Withrow said. “We are all concerned the state is going to shut us down again. We just can’t survive economically with another shutdown.”
Kristin Olsen, chair of the county Board of Supervisors, said the increase in hospitalizations is concerning but the local hospitals still have plenty of capacity for the patient surge.
“We are not in a danger zone when we talk about capacity,” she said. “If the recent trend line were to continue, we could get there pretty quickly.”
Olsen said she does not know whether the state will take action to tighten restrictions here because it is working more collaboratively with the counties under monitoring.
Singh said the county has not been contacted by state health officials about the recent hospitalization and case numbers.
Bay Area counties have mandatory mask orders
Other counties, including six in the Bay Area, have adopted their own face mask requirements as they try to flatten the curve of new infections. In Alameda County, a citation for not wearing a mask in public can carry a fine up to $1,000.
Gov. Newsom has asked for voluntary compliance with his health orders to curb the pandemic, though violation of a public health order is a misdemeanor with a possible financial penalty. Under the state order, masks are not required for children younger than 2 years old or for people with medical or developmental disabilities that prevent them from wearing a face covering.
Among other exceptions, people don’t have to wear a mask when eating at a restaurant or swimming, walking, running, biking or other exercise.
Fines for noncompliance could trigger an uproar here, as some residents are divided over mask requirements along partisan lines. In addition, the county has tried to promote face coverings in underserved and Latino neighborhoods. Ethnicity data shows that 70 percent of county residents who’ve tested positive for coronavirus are Latino.
Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, chief county health officer, has said mask-wearing and safe distancing are essential to preventing infections as people circulate in retail stores and other public places.
In five months’ time, the coronavirus pandemic has infected 2.2 million people in the United States and resulted in 118,700 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. That is more than three times the number of deaths from seasonal flu each year.
Stanislaus County’s five hospitals were caring for a daily average of 45 confirmed COVID-19 patients last week, compared to a daily average of 20 patients in early May before the county began reopening.
In trying to explain the surge in cases, county public health has cited small outbreaks among employees working in stores, restaurants, warehouses and a large outbreak among seasonal produce workers in a neighboring county. Some of those produce workers live in Stanislaus County.
The county’s contact tracing operation tries to quarantine those workers and keep them from spreading the respiratory illness to people they know.
Singh said another source of new infections has been family gatherings. Health care facility and nursing home outbreaks have also created case clusters and driven the spike in hospitalizations, the spokesman said. State-ordered baseline testing of staff and residents in all nursing homes has begun and resulted in some positive tests.
Are some COVID-19 patients from other counties?
County public health is inquiring about how many COVID-19 patients in Modesto’s regional hospitals are from neighboring counties. Doctors Medical Center and Memorial Medical normally serve patients from a six-county region including Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Merced, Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa.
The county has delayed opening of nail salons and tattoo shops until month’s end because the personal contact involved in those services heightens the risk of spreading coronavirus.
Olsen said, in her opinion, evidence has not shown conclusively whether face coverings are effective, though in communities where masks are the norm the disease numbers are significantly lower than in Stanislaus County. Part of the reason for a face mask order here was to ensure more businesses could reopen and improve the economy, she said.
“We are hopeful this new intervention will help reduce the spread of coronavirus and stabilize our hospital numbers,” Olsen said.
This story was originally published June 20, 2020 at 8:36 AM.
