At an emotional press conference Wednesday on the cusp of Christmas Eve, Santa Clara County health leaders begged the public to cancel their holiday travel and gathering plans to help prevent further skyrocketing COVID-19 cases.
The region's hospitals are in crisis mode due to the surging cases, with only 35 remaining intensive care unit beds throughout the county. Eight out of 10 hospitals have fewer than five available beds. Three hospitals have fewer than 10 beds of any kind left, said Dr. Ahmad Kamal, COVID-19 director of health care preparedness.
"As of today, there were 68 patients in the emergency room waiting for a hospital bed who did not have one," he said Wednesday.
Reports of people planning to travel for the holidays has alarmed county and health leaders as the number of new daily cases has topped 1,200 per day, they said. The skyrocketing number of hospitalizations since Thanksgiving when many people traveled and gathered outside of their households is straining the health care system. An increased number of cases after the holidays would tip the system into uncharted territory, they said.
"If we have a surge on top of a surge, we will definitely break. We cannot afford that," county Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said.
All of the numbers are going the wrong way and the reality is grim, she added. Despite begging people not to travel, officials saw a steep rise in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths after Thanksgiving. As of Dec. 23, 632 people have died from COVID-19 and 631 people are hospitalized with the virus in the county; nearly 60,000 people have tested positive, county Counsel James Williams said.
In mid-November, a week before Thanksgiving, an average of three people died per day due to COVID-19. A month later, that average increased to nearly six people per day. The county’s seven-day average positivity rate as of Dec. 13 was 7.7%, the highest since the pandemic began in March. That’s compared to 3.4% on Nov. 19, one week before Thanksgiving Day, and 1.3% on May 27, county officials said.
"I understand that this is a very hard message to hear. It is not the message that we want to be delivering on the eve of holidays where our tradition is to come together, and the message is even harder to do than to hear. But we cannot emphasize enough that this is a matter of life and death. So please, do not gather. Celebrate with just those in your household. If you have plans to travel, go home and cancel them. Cancel your travel plans. Celebrate over the phone, over social media, over Zoom. Cook a meal in your home and enjoy it with just the people in your home. It can save a life. It will save a life and it's very important to do," Cody said.
If the county sees another surge that looks anything like Thanksgiving "we are going to see a crisis," Williams said. COVID-19 is close to being the third largest cause of death in the county this year after cancer and heart disease.
Kamal begged people to cancel their travel plans and gatherings and to stay home. With hospital resources dwindling, there is a real risk that many sick patients will not have a bed in the hospital and many more could die.
"We are talking about people in gurneys without a bed to go to; we are talking about people not getting hospital care. We are talking about rationing what scarce resources our exhausted health system has left to those who will benefit the most. We are talking about people dying who should not have died. And when hospitals are at that point where they are rationing care, where they are having to turn away people who desperately need their services, it's no longer just about COVID, but everybody. It's about people in a car accident; it's about people with a heart attack. This will affect all of us," Kamal said.
Although the number of cases appears to be slightly softening a month after Thanksgiving, it's not enough to prevent disaster if people again travel and gather and spike the surge, county officials said.
"This is the time when we want to come together, when we need to come together, but we cannot come together in person. ... It's just not safe this year. One of the enormous, enormous challenges of COVID is that it's silent. You can't see it; your loved one doesn't look dangerous. And you can have chains of silent spread that end in someone being hospitalized or end in someone dying. But if we each do our part and we stay just within our household bubble, we can prevent people from dying and that is what we must do. That is the holiday gift that we must give each other," Cody said.
Watch the full press conference here:
Find comprehensive coverage on the Midpeninsula's response to the new coronavirus by Palo Alto Online, the Mountain View Voice and the Almanac here.
Comments
Registered user
Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Dec 23, 2020 at 3:40 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 3:40 pm
“ All of the numbers are going the wrong way and the reality is grim, she added. ”
When I look at the data set, I see decreasing cases since the 15th.
Web Link
Of course mrs Cody has never been really forthcoming about numbers, or real data showing where the majority of infections are occuring. I think part of the reason people are ignoring Cody’s pleadings is a loss of confidence in the county health officials to be forthcoming with facts and information.
Registered user
Cuesta Park
on Dec 23, 2020 at 3:55 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 3:55 pm
The public officials have lost credibility because they refuse to share key data and cherry-pick other data when it suits them. Here’s a data point: 49% of the Covid deaths in Santa Clara County are from Long-Term Care Facilities. Are Cody and Smith doing anything to address that obvious issue? Of course not. Instead they’d rather use the same blunt instrument approach to the entire population that they’ve used for 9 months, rather than focus on specific populations that could make the most impact. It’s not working, and people have tuned them out, and rightly so.
Registered user
Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Dec 23, 2020 at 4:12 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 4:12 pm
Gerald- couldn’t agree more. There is an article in today’s MV voice discussing how MV senior care facilities have been hit hard by COVID. Remember also that back in March mrs Cody used fear as her weapon to keep us in our places.
Plus when you newsome, breed, liccardo and brix openly flaunting the guidelines that they order us to obey, it makes people wonder. And in liccardo’s case, even though he broke the law, mrs Cody did not fine or arrest him. Looks like you have one of the Palo Alto elite protecting one of the San Jose elite, nice message it sends
Registered user
Cuesta Park
on Dec 23, 2020 at 5:10 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 5:10 pm
@VictorBishop, on all the data dashboards, the county says that the data for the last seven days is preliminary. It's not surprising that the total looks lower since the 15th (which was eight days ago), because it can take seven days for swabs to be tested and results to be reported to the county. The numbers for the 16th-23rd will only rise as more results come in.
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Dec 23, 2020 at 5:11 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 5:11 pm
Hello Victor long time no see.
Lets give the readers the actual dashboard it is here regarding the ICU capacity, which is only 11% (Web Link.">Web Link 42% are COVID patients.
Also the Blueprint dashboard is found here (Web Link and it reports a 7.6% positivity rate and adjusted 25 per 100,000 people currently infected and the adjusted test rate of 362 per 100,000.
Finally when it comes to the capacity of the hospitals there are only 1754 non ICU beds in the county, and we have NO BEDS LEFT if you look at this dashboard (Web Link
You really need to look more carefully. We are actually at maximum capacity at this time and some people are going to die because of that alone, not COVID.
No more of your misleading information on this discussion, I hope.
Registered user
Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Dec 23, 2020 at 5:20 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 5:20 pm
BDBD - if it is taking a week for test results to be given to the county that may explain our rising numbers. People are tested, who may be positive, results are not returned for a week. Meanwhil these infected people are spreading the virus to others. If that was the case, it is a monumental failure of our county health officials
GoldyCISSP- I posted a link to a county dashboard. No false or misleading information. And once again you are trying to bully people that disagree with you.
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Dec 23, 2020 at 6:13 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 6:13 pm
In response to Victor Bishop you wrote:
“BDBD - if it is taking a week for test results to be given to the county that may explain our rising numbers.”
NO IT DOESN’T. What explains it is that people like yourself promoted things like participating in activities with higher risk than the safe actions. Doing so made you more likely to get infected. THe TESTS only DETECT when you are infected and nothing more. You wrote:
“People are tested, who may be positive, results are not returned for a week.”
If people were acting safely, the testing would not even be necessary. Because these people would not have been at risk. But instead, you and your friends encouraged more risky behaviors, right? You wrote:
“Meanwhil these infected people are spreading the virus to others. If that was the case, it is a monumental failure of our county health officials.”
The OFFICIALS cannot prevent poor judgement from the people from getting them sick. You and your kind lobbied and forced the health officials to only have guidelines and rarely enforced them. The solution is that if ANYONE is caught doing anything unsafe regarding COVID should be taken into custody and quarantined, right? Then you can hold them responsible. You wrote:
“GoldyCISSP- I posted a link to a county dashboard. No false or misleading information. And once again you are trying to bully people that disagree with you.”
Not bullying anyone, just pointing out that you were a contributor to the current crisis all along.
Registered user
Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Dec 23, 2020 at 6:37 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 6:37 pm
GoldiCssip says : "What explains it is that people like yourself promoted things like participating in activities with higher risk than the safe actions."
LOL. You mean like disagreeing with GoldiCSSIP??? Or do you mean dining outdoors during the months it was allowed or using outdoor playgrounds or meeting friends for socially distanced events??? or just disagreeing with GoldiCSSip/steven goldstein???
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Dec 23, 2020 at 6:45 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 6:45 pm
Victor,
You KNOW those were HIGHER RISK activities, and the public health officials did say so on so many occasions. The only safe thing to do is limit social interactions and prevent sharing in effect ANY air.
The people like yourself simply said to us, "Don't worry we got this." Especially the topic of outdoor dining. But the correlation of infection increase, and the lowering of the color tiers are clear as day. The reality is that unless you are not allowed to undertake riskier activities, you will do it, and the infections reflected it.
Time for you to take responsibility for your actions in this matter.
Registered user
Cuesta Park
on Dec 23, 2020 at 7:25 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 7:25 pm
Steven seems to be neglecting some key data.....just an oversight and not intentional I’m sure:
—49% of SCC deaths are in LTCF facilities
—94% of SCC deaths are over 50
—over 80% of deaths had 1 or more co-morbidity
—there is zero published data that outdoor dining drove community spread in SCC
—there is zero published data that retail drove community spread in SCC
—there is zero published data from SCC on ICU and non-ICU hospital utilization in the last several Decembers so we’d have something to compare the current situation to
—there is data, published in the Los Altos paper today, the distance learning is failing our most economically disadvantaged kids and causing them to fall further behind
—there is data that poverty and crime is increasing in SCC and there are long lines for food at local churches right here in Mountain View.
I could go on. But please just continue trying to shame people and defending a policy that SCC has been employing for the last 9 months that is doing nothing but destroying businesses and the livelihood of many thousands in this city and county while doing nothing to protect the people most vulnerable to Covid.
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Dec 23, 2020 at 9:34 pm
Registered user
on Dec 23, 2020 at 9:34 pm
In response to Gerard Shok you said:
“Steven seems to be neglecting some key data.....just an oversight and not intentional I’m sure:
—49% of SCC deaths are in LTCF facilities”
That means 51% of SCC deaths are NOT in LTCF facilities right? You wrote
“—94% of SCC deaths are over 50”
So you want to practice unsafe living because it ONLY is happening to the eldery? You know that is not the current trend now, it is equally infecting all age groups. You wrote:
“—over 80% of deaths had 1 or more co-morbidity”
Again if people are acting unsafely and increases the infections your just making it more dangerous for those not yet infected, your not making any sense. You wrote:
—there is zero published data that outdoor dining drove community spread in SCC”
However ther is research that proves it is a danger, you forget the recent reports like the one on ABC New 7 titled “Is it necessary to ban outdoor dining in California's regional stay-at-home order? Doctor explains COVID-19 risk” found here (Web Link and there is this report too “ NEW CDC REPORT CITES DINING OUT AS A SIGNIFICANT COVID RISK “ (Web Link You wrote:
“—there is zero published data that retail drove community spread in SCC”
That may be true but more importantly there is no published data proving it is safe either. You are just like NASA was when the Morton Thiokol engineers warned about the Challenger launch and NASA said what proof do you have it is unsafe, we all know what happened next. You wrote:
“—there is zero published data from SCC on ICU and non-ICU hospital utilization in the last several Decembers so we’d have something to compare the current situation to”
Talking about it doesn’t matter, There is no available standard beds available in all the county and only 11% available ICUS. Your comment simply is ridiculous, we do not have practically any resources left in the county for hospitals NOW. You wrote:
“—there is data, published in the Los Altos paper today, the distance learning is failing our most economically disadvantaged kids and causing them to fall further behind”
Yes, but the question is do you want to see teachers, students or others infected, possibly permanently impaired due to long haul symptoms upon recovery or deaths? WHY NOT PLAY SAFE? You wrote:
“—there is data that poverty and crime is increasing in SCC and there are long lines for food at local churches right here in Mountain View.”
That is because we did not actually prepare ourselves for the big long term problems of having a Just In Time for profit healthcare system that did not provide any reserves for a big pandemic.
We did not implement support systems to establish long term stabilization for people not able to work for what it should have been understood to be at least 2 years.
What we did in all of the economy was having at least 40% of businesses being ZOMBIES, they were not succeeding and only surviving by getting loans to cover expenses and making just enough to not fail to pay debt.
Registered user
Cuernavaca
on Dec 24, 2020 at 3:58 pm
Registered user
on Dec 24, 2020 at 3:58 pm
Many businesses could have adapted to the pandemic but balked. Big businesses lobbied for public handouts - with a story about how subsidizing them would trickle down to real people in real need of help. Anyone who imagines the pandemic isn't real might consider (1) heading down to Calvery Church - open this Christmas eve (December 24) in Almaden Valley, (2) chipping in money for the defense attorneys and millions of dollars in county fines - plus a little something extra for paid employees of the church and (3) saying a prayer for the devil incarnate: Donald Trump - the self-proclaimed "chosen one." Maybe if you hurry, you can kill your parents with Covid-19 and still get a full pardon from Trump before he leaves office. Otherwise, I have no strong opinions - one way or another!
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Dec 27, 2020 at 5:10 pm
Registered user
on Dec 27, 2020 at 5:10 pm
I just saw that only 2,000,000 doses of vaccine were delivered and administered so far on CNN.
Everyone said there would be 20,000,000 by the end of the month.
If this trend continues, the projections made are not even going to be close. they barely reached 10% of the projection in December.
If it urns out that the production is that slow or the supply chains cannot achieve even 50% of the projection, the vaccination program will double in time length, and that is if the vaccines prove safe and effective.
Imagine if only say 25,000,000 people get vaccinated by July of next year and only 50,000,000 by the end of the year? The Movie Contagion predicted this problem, and Trump and the like simply said, of we got this we just spend enough and we can do better.
It looks like that even if 2 more vaccines come on the market the best we might achieve is 100,000,000 people vaccinated by the end of 2021, Since there are 330,000,000 people in the U.S. that means it will be at least 2 years before we can approach enough people to START returning to normal, right?
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Dec 29, 2020 at 7:35 pm
Registered user
on Dec 29, 2020 at 7:35 pm
As of today we are still at only 7% ICU bed availability, that's with the "Surge" additions.
Lets just face it, that we are not making much progress, and it looks like we are going to be in the CODE BLUE order through the winter.
But what else can be done? What can we do that will reduce hospital utilization WHILE increasing risk of spread of COVID?
We cannot just magically increase the ICU beds and resources can we?
Will someone please give us an answer?