(From Press Release) – Yolo County has moved to mitigation measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) as well as other infectious illnesses such as the flu. These measures will take effect today, March 11, and are expected to remain in effect until March 31st as directed by our Health Officer but may be revised or extended.
City Gatherings/Events/Programs/Recreation Classes Guidelines
- City Hall remains open.
- City-led, Indoor Events Open to the General Public will be canceled. The City will notify parties of cancellations. Exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis by the Parks and Community Services Director for smaller programs (such as indoor recreation programs) depending upon class size, type, and facility.
- Outdoor Events Open to the General Public may proceed. However, the City reserves the option to cancel on short notice as we monitor the situation. Event planners should consider voluntary cancellation pursuant to the County Health Officer recommendations. Full refunds will be provided.
- Indoor Events Not Open to the General Public (private rental/use of City facility) may proceed. However, the City reserves the option to cancel on short notice as we monitor the situation and to ensure that any City staff support needed for the event does not pose unnecessary risk. Event planners should consider voluntary cancellation pursuant to the County Health Officer recommendations. Full refunds will be provided.
- City Commissions and 2×2 meetings will proceed only for essential and/or time- sensitive matters. For meetings that are held, provisions will be made for participation of commissioners by remote methods as may be desired by commissioners, or other remote participation tools. The City Clerk will provide specific guidance to commission staff liaisons.
- City Council Meetings will proceed with the exception of ceremonial, reception, and other “non-business” items.
- Alternative methods of providing comments will be highlighted for those wishing to provide comments but not attend City Council and Commissions meetings in person.
Questions?
Recreation Classes csweb@cityofdavis.org (530) 757-5626 option 2
Facility Rentals csweb@cityofdavis.org (530) 757-5626 option 2
City Manager’s Office – cmoweb@cityofdavis.org (530) 757-5602
To see the guidelines issued from the Yolo County Health Officer or the California Department of Public Health, use this link: www.yolocounty.org/coronavirus
I’ll be attending in person, to do my part to help spread the virus along.
But seriously folks, a real question for those in the know — why doesn’t it make sense to shut down the economy and social-distance ourselves every flu season, to prevent the — what is it — 40,000 (?) average flu deaths each years, also to vulnerable populations. And I don’t buy ‘we have a vaccine’ — that’s 40K deaths! OK, why? Why really?
I suspect one answer is that they believe that this could potentially generate far more deaths than 20,000. This has at least ten times the mortality rate. So if the flu kills 20,000 to 40,000, this would kill 200,000 to 400,000 over the same infection rate.
Let’s put the 40K annual flu deaths in perspective.
1) Flu is not even one of the annual top ten for deaths. See: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
2) We have a vaccine and testing for flu
3) We have a lot of knowledge about seasonal flu. The CDC and vaccine makers start gearing up well in advance.
Now, let’s look at COVID-19
1) We DO NOT have a lot of knowledge from a public health standpoint about the disease –
a. It’s new – we only recently have been able to fully sequence it.
b. We have only begun to understand how it spreads and what it’s incubation period is.
c. We are VERY late in getting lots of accurate testing.
d. There will be no widely available vaccine for months and months (I’ve seen estimates up to a year.
e. Why not kids? Is there something we can learn from their apparent non-susceptibility
2) COVID-19 may not be “just like” the flu. It may not go away as the seasons change.
3) It has been circulating for a while so what the incidence (new cases) will be in the next period is not completely known
4) It is layered on top of the seasonal flu. Flu season only has a month or so to run so the numbers from the seasonal flu are cumulative over a six month period. The numbers for COVID-19 are essentially for two months.
Alan
I can offer my perspective. We should be practicing social distancing during the typical flu season. It would definitely save lives. But as a society, we are focused on “rugged individualism” not public health. People would benefit from staying home when ill, and all they come in contact with would benefit as well. However, we ( in this case the GOP) refuse to take even emergency measures to allow guaranteed income for two weeks to allow for self-isolation of the ill.
Typically this is not an obvious problem for white-collar workers and the wealthy. We have the luxury of not working, or in some cases, working from home as Robert is now doing. The folks at the lower end of the economic ladder are not so fortunate. They typically must go to work in order to support their families. Those of us at the upper end of the scale act as though this does not affect us, but I guarantee it does. Whether it is from barista or checkers hand to our latte or groceries, whether from Uber driver to well-heeled passenger, whether from the train grip we use to disembark, it does affect us all, especially in flu season. We could choose to lower the numbers affected…we choose not to. That also has a cost.
I think this basic but detailed summary of why take special steps and what steps to take in the time of Covid-19 may already have been posted previously. But this version was updated as of yesterday and I think it is very helpful and worth repeating.
https://www.flattenthecurve.com/#Yes_This_is_Bad
I found this article to be helpful: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/12/21172040/coronavirus-covid-19-virus-charts
Another key point, which is mentioned in the flattening the curve article, is that people don’t all get the flu at once as they seem to be doing with COVID-19. This could overwhelm our health care system, especially in terms of ventilators. In Italy, hospitals were forced to ration ventilators–denying them to the very old and very sick.
But since we only currently have @ 1000 cases of COVID – 19 in the U.S. and have had 40 million cases of the flu so far this season with 350,000 being hospitalized I would have to believe that the flu has had a much more overwhelming affect on the system than Coronavirus.
Keith, this is not the flu. We don’t know how many cases of COVID-19 there are. The estimate of 1,000 cases is because we have had 1,000 positive tests. Given the lack/slowness of getting people in risk groups and who show symptoms tested there may be many thousands more. Without the flue vaccine and a good surveillance system, the system would be overwhelmed by the flu. And remember, flu season is spread out from September through April while right now the coronavirus “season” is only two months long in the U.S. And it is uncontrolled, as opposed to the flue. More people commit suicide each year than die from the flu.
I am going to repost my comments from Monday’s article on this but note two things first: On Monday there were About 500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US. Today there are more than 1000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US. Someone do the math on what that kind of doubling time implies going forward.
Second it is wrong to say we have 1000 cases in the US. We have 1000 confirmed cases but ask any local health authority about the availability of testing to confirm cases and they will tell you it is not sufficient at all. South Korea is aggressively testing. The US is simply not. We, therefore, do not know the number of cases in the US but one respected former head of the FDA I read this morning puts it at 10,000 already.
So, with that in mind, here are my comments from Monday that I hope people will read (I have edited them lightly)
I would encourage folks to read this paper that uses the most updated information we have about the age-specific case-fatality rates, infections, and lag-time from infection to death. They are built upon the same data from China that Don cited above.
A few points:
1) It is incorrect to say there are only 500 cases of COVID-19 in the US. There are 500 confirmed cases—confirmed by testing. By everyone’s admission testing has barely begun here. This implies we simply do not know how many cases there are. There are certainly many thousands already.
2) The age-specific case fatality rates are the real area of concern. In every age group over 60 they simply dwarf anything we have seen with seasonal flu. (I can provide these but they are roughly 4% 60-70, 8% 70-80, and over 16% over 80.)
3) Do your own math on this data: there are c49 million Americans over 65 in the US. Let’s say only 5% of them ever get infected (estimates of potential infection range from 20-60% at this time though encouraging data from Korea suggests it is possible to bring the R naught measure of infectivity down quickly with super aggressive testing and isolating cases—something the US is NOT doing—we are more like early Wuhan than Seoul), and then let’s say that all of them have a case fatality rate of just 5% (highly unlikely in the age groups over 70 and 80 but try it out). Compare your result to the reported number of deaths from flu…
4. We are in the early days of this epidemic in the US so we still can take actions to “flatten the epidemic curve” and, perhaps rapidly bring the R naught below one. What this will allow is for cases to be treated appropriately in hospital and keep our healthcare system from being overwhelmed (as it most certainly is in Italy—Italy’s deaths are clustered in older ages of a significantly older population than the US overall).
5. Today the County Medical Officer will offer some of the social distancing actions we can and must take to flatten the curve. Others we already know and they involve personal hygiene, personal isolation in the case of illness, and careful attention to surface hygiene in public places. I am happy to provide further information on these practices for any an all who are interested. (This was done on Monday and needs to be heeded)
6. One additional correction: children are not “vectors”. They get the disease like everyone else and indications are they spread it like everyone else. However, they do not tend to get sick from it for reasons that are not understood. They MAY be less infectious but they still shed virus. (Note: a vector does not get the disease, merely carries it. Children do get it but may not spread it as much as adults—frankly there is still a LOT we don’t know about children).
7. Finally, as you have likely read, the virus causing COVID-19 is here to stay. Taking actions now to reduce its spread will provide necessary time to develop treatments and vaccines. Your best sources of information are Drs Fauci and Messonier from NIH and CDC. Listen to them carefully.
Here is a link to the article I mentioned in the comment above:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031104v1.full.pdf
I don’t remember that much panic over the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 – 2010. What was different then?
Think about it.
Have thought about it, off/on for last 3 weeks… came to similar conclusions, based on history…
Prudence, reasonable caution is appropriate… but the sky is not falling. This is not “the end of times”, and %-age wise, I certainly doubt that it will rise to the level of the Spanish flu, as to either morbidity or mortality… informed prudence, good… poorly informed panic, bad.
[worst case scenario, re-read Darwin’s hypothesis as to ‘survival of the species’]
A portion of Rob Davis’ post…
… is spot on… I’d only add the adjectives, “considered, reasonable…” to “actions”…
I will also note that when we come up with vaccines (and, based on history, we will), the “anti-vaxxers” will decline them, and fully expect ‘the rest of the herd’ to protect them and theirs… but, there are some legitimate medical reasons, on an individual basis, to not vaccinate sometimes… but in reality, fairly rare…
I’ve gotten flu shots for ~ 10 years now. Also pneumonia (which killed my Mom), shingles, tetanus…
What was different then?
Every pathogen is different. You cannot compare H1N1 to this virus except to say that both cause respiratory diseases. That is about ALL they have in common.
To answer exactly what was different “then” requires a description of “then”.
All I can say is that this virus 1) spreads relatively easily 2) is not like any virus for which there might be a vaccine 3) is not a “cousin” to the flu but a novel virus 4) causes death in a much greater proportion than any recent flu strain that spreads this easily.
It seems that some people want to believe those of us in public health are merely crying “wolf.” And I guess they will believe that until the wolf is at their door.
The President declared a National Emergency today. Is there any reason to believe he doubts the magnitude of this challenge?
Yes. His previous statements, and the fact he wants (passionately) to be re-elected… and the limited $$$ amount that he has said he will authorize (I admit it might be sufficient, but suspect it might be directed to “red states”… I may be wrong… time will tell). He has finally realized that his previous positions are not ‘sustainable’… likely via persuasive coaching by his ‘minions’… on the political level, not cognitive level… IMO…
I hope I am incorrect…
Prudence, informed… not panic or political games-playing is my desire… what is actually best for all is my goal..
In that latter matter, I agree with Robb, on the other aspects of his post.
My, so “uniquely” wise. Thanks for sharing.
Have you not heard that Newsom said the president gave California everything it asked for, and they are putting aside politics and cooperating and even saying nice things about each other?