Will Sacramento be in the next wave of counties to reopen? Health director pushing for it
With the coronavirus spread slowing locally, Sacramento County’s health director says he is working on a plan to reopen some businesses faster than elsewhere in the state, taking advantage of a proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom Monday for a region-by-region approach to reopening.
Dr. Peter Beilenson said his team is drawing up a menu of businesses – including restaurants – that it believes it can announce prospective reopening dates for as early as next week.
Newsom on Monday broke the ice, saying he is willing to let some counties open their economies more quickly, essentially jumping ahead of his more conservative statewide reopening plan – if those counties can show they have a low enough virus rate and smart game plans that allow reopening to be done safely.
Newsom said he also will announce details Thursday about allowing many retail establishments statewide to reopen their doors as early as Friday for curbside sales pickups.
He listed clothing stores, bookstores, florists, music stores, toy stores and sporting goods as part of the Friday wave of reopenings. Restaurants would not be on the Friday opening list, he said, but some counties may be able to go ahead and do that.
Yuba and Sutter counties reopened their restaurants Monday, pointing out their counties had very few virus cases and that their economies needed the boost. Newsom said he was listening to concerns from low-virus counties around the state, such as Yuba and Sutter, and agreed it is time to give some counties freedom to move forward, while supporting counties that are harder hit and want to move more slowly.
Dr. Sonia Angell, the governor’s health chief, said counties that plan to go beyond the state edict must first “attest” to both the public and to the state in publicly viewable documents that they have a plan to protect poorer and older residents, and have the surge capacity in their hospitals if infections begin to rise.
If a county is hit with a sudden surge of cases after reopening some of its economy, the state could step in and require them to close down again, the governor said.
Beilenson of Sacramento County says he figures the governor will ask counties to show their coronavirus data trend lines and virus tracing capacities.
“This certification I presume will be basically: hospitalizations, ICU cases, deaths, the number of (county) contact tracers,” he said. “I would imagine the county will meet those guidelines. “
Coronavirus infections low in Sacramento
As of Sunday, Sacramento County hospitals reported only 26 patients with confirmed infections, far lower than a month ago, when the number hit 107. The county had been prepared for a surge of up to 600 at a time.
Only two new virus infection cases were recorded in the county between Saturday and Sunday, though county officials announced five deaths on Monday, a high number by recent Sacramento standards.
A Sacramento Bee analysis last week found that the Sacramento metropolitan region had the lowest coronavirus case rate in the country among metro areas with more than 1 million people as of Friday, slightly more than two months into the pandemic nationally.
Beilenson has repeatedly cautioned, however, about the need to maintain social distancing, saying that and the stay-at-home order in effect since mid-March have been key to reducing the spread of the disease. Reopening businesses too soon or without sufficient precautions could reignite the virus spread.
The county started with six contact tracers in its health department, and has been hiring and training in hopes of bringing the number soon to 30.
Beilenson said he isn’t sure whether the governor will consider 30 enough though for a large county like Sacramento and its roughly 1.5 million residents. The governor has spoken about training a statewide force of 10,000 tracers, which could greatly bolster efforts in counties.
Contact tracers will play a key role in the reopening: Any time someone is diagnosed with COVID-19, tracers will attempt to identify and request quarantine of anyone that patient came into contact with in the days when infection was likely.
The county has been formulating options for reopening businesses beyond the retail outlets that Newsom green lit Monday for reopenings later this week.
Beilenson declined to discuss how that list is shaping up, but said he may be ready to unveil a plan next week. Restaurant dining likely will be on the list, with notable restrictions that would include disposable menus, staff in masks, a reduced number of tables to enable social distancing and some form of vetting of diners to make sure they are not sick.
Beilenson echoed the voices of some other local county officials and health officers who have been saying that the desire to reopen is based in part on mental and economic community health, balanced with concern about the continued spread of the coronavirus.
“It’s been a horrendous economic dislocation,” Beilenson said. Decision makers “have to be cognizant of that: the tremendous mental health stresses that it is putting on our population.
“We want to stay on top of the testing, though, with adequate numbers of contact tracers,” he added. “If one person is COVID-positive, we want to have a tracer come out and talk to that person and find out who he has been in contact with, and smother every one of these before it spreads.”
This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM.