Working through the unknown has become the “norm” for Dr. Sara Cody, as the director of Santa Clara County’s Public Health Department, now a household name in California that's also recognizable across the country.
In fact, the last year has brought many firsts: her first press conference, first experience as an international meme and her first time contending with a global pandemic creeping into the United States right in her backyard.
“I remember that about a year ago, we felt quite blind; we didn't know what was going on, because we had so few tools available, and most importantly, we didn't have much in the way of lab testing,” Cody said during Joint Venture Silicon Valley’s annual State of the Valley event Wednesday. “The ways in which we've needed to respond have been unprecedented, and extraordinarily difficult and extraordinarily uncomfortable.”
Now the country has reached its first anniversary of Covid-19’s descent on the U.S.
Santa Clara County is no longer one of the biggest hotspots in California, as it was in the first months of the pandemic, but old challenges still linger and new questions have emerged. Among them: when to reopen schools; how common is reinfection; who gets priority in the vaccine rollout; and what will come with emerging virus variations?
Cody, who has been the county’s top health official since 2013, recounted the biggest milestones of the past year, like the first national shelter-in-place order on March 16 that made her either wildly popular or unpopular, depending on who one asked. That order, “in retrospect, was the easiest part” of her pandemic response, she said.
Santa Clara County became home to the first known U.S. death from the virus a little more than a year ago and has since tallied 1,700 deaths and nearly 110,000 positive cases, according to county data. The U.S. recently passed 500,000 deaths from the disease, and 50,000 of those were in California—the most of any state, according to the New York Times.
“We all talk about building a plane while flying and how difficult it is, but responding to this pandemic has really felt like building a whole fleet while trying to fly them in formation,” Cody said. “There's been so much infrastructure that's needed to be built – just in-time infrastructure –because the truth is, it’s been revealed is that the public health infrastructure that's needed simply doesn't exist.”
Looking Ahead
Today, however, there are some things Cody says she knows for certain.
For starters, people need to continue wearing masks and avoiding large gatherings, likely for months to come, she said. Infection will still be traveling around the county during that time, especially among frontline workers who live in crowded, multi-generational homes, according to Cody.
While vaccines started rolling out in Santa Clara County before the end of 2020, the ever-changing protocols from state and federal leaders have frustrated the local rollout, she said. The county will transition into the next phase of vaccinations, known as Phase 1B, at the beginning of March. So far, around 53 percent of county residents aged 65 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Vaccine supplies are still nowhere near demand, especially in places with high infection rates like Gilroy and East San Jose. But despite the hurdles, Cody said she never would have guessed the country and region would have come so far in less than a year into the national crisis.
“If there could be anything wonderful in such a devastating and deadly pandemic, it’s that we have a safe and effective vaccine–two of them,” she said. “I think soon we'll have three and perhaps more.”
That good news remains bookended by the pandemic’s recurring theme: uncertainty about the future.
“It's difficult to even think about, to be honest; so many families have experienced so much sadness and so much loss, not just from losing someone to Covid, but from illness and from the anxiety of the pandemic,” Cody said. “It's been enormously, enormously challenging. I think that we do have a chance to return to a normal, but this has been a national trauma, and we’re not going to be the same.”
This is a bizarre article. It’s almost as if the author believes that Dr. Cody’s actions were actually helpful.
Historical death rate in the US for 2020, though marginally higher than in the decades previous, was lower than the rate for the first four of the last seven decades. It is likely that decreases in cigarette smoking, improved vehicle safety (brakes, belts, bags), and vastly improved emergency medical care (paramedics, trauma centers, etc.) played a big part in the tide turning in the 1990s, but considering the oldest Baby Boomers are just now reaching average life expectancy ages, common sense says the rate will be on the increase for the next twenty years — EVEN IF EVERYONE STAYS HOME AND HIDES!
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/death-rate
“the anxiety of the pandemic,” that was largely caused by Sara Cody making a criminal out of anyone who saw loved ones or operated a small business. What a clueless bureaucrat.
Cody order unconstitutional:
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/02/26/u-s-supreme-court-lifts-santa-clara-countys-ban-on-indoor-religious-services-once-and-for-all/
She and the County need better lawyers than Jeff Smith and James Williams.
Cody order unconstitutional — Vacancy Vaquero
That she and so many in government did not hesitate to deny their countrymen the right to attend their respective houses of worship is a disgrace: to our educational system, our nation’s Founders, and the sordid history of religious persecution that inspired the amendment’s protections.
This really highlights the abject failure of Cody’s shutdown orders for the last 4-5 months, and the resultant economic damage it has inflicted. Restaurants practically closed, personal care businesses totally closed, houses of worship closed, drinking fountains closed and numerous businesses permanently closed, AND still we had this “surge” during the holidays. None of these places were responsible for it, so what exactly was responsible? Where did all these cases come from?
The County delayed reopening until July, making us among the last to reopen, in order to hire and train 1400 contact tracers. What exactly have these tracers found? How is this being transmitted? This is the job of the Health Official and no word? It seems important to know and understand this.
And during this surge period when hospital covid recovery beds were below the allowable, where were VMC patients sent to recover? Local LTCFs or other off site facilities? Where exactly?
And of all the patients treated at VMC, is there a breakdown of those that are County residents, and those that are not County residents…such as those that were transferred from other parts of the State, or who transported themselves from other areas outside our County?
We already know that the County has accepted patients from other parts of the State, but how are they being tracked? Because it appears that the County dashboard totals either do not account for them, or if accounted, then must be blended in with County residents. All of which is misleading.
“Recommendation to wear a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, incident SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with no mask recommendation.” — DANMASK-19 [Danish Study to Assess Face Masks for the Protection Against COVID-19 Infection]
If masks offer no significant protection to wearers, then:
— we should not be surprised by the absence of evidence of benefit for mask-mandated, locked-downed Californians.
— we should take note that, despite the inefficacy of their protective masks and their daily interactions with reckless and irresponsible strangers in and outside private homes, infection rates among first responders are low.
— the big surge coincided with the closing up of homes (due to cold weather) and firing up of heaters (forced air units probably acting as super-spreaders).
— we should consider, all political considerations aside, acting in response to what the virus tells us, not the experts.
I will go back to normal. And, soon.