High Gear
Burlingame Rotary Meeting
Wednesday, May 13th 2020
Andrew Comstock, High Gear Writer
Guest Speaker: Dave Pine, San Mateo County Supervisor (District 1)
Topic: County Response to COVID-19
Pledge of Allegiance: Paul Watermulder
Invocation Led by Cheryl Young and Marilynn Orr: Rotary Giving Fund extended one week
Rotary Giving Fund Burlingame Rotary has started a donation drive for the staff of Par 3 - the service personnel (wait + kitchen staff) who normally put together the wonderful meals at Rotary Meetings. A link can be found on the Burlingame Rotary Website. Please give on the site by May 19th. Contributions and raised $4,200 so far. Marilynn Orr is also taking the lead on the collection, so please reach out to her directly if members do not wish to use the website.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Rotary MasksCheri showed some new Rotary branded facemasks on behalf of the Assistant District Governor. While not suitable for a hospital setting, they are more than perfect for our new day-to-day lives wearing masks outdoors and when we go shopping. More to come!
PROGRAM SUMMARY: Dave Pine, San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and represents Supervisorial District 1, S. San Francisco, San Bruno, Millbrae, Burlingame, and Hillsborough.
Currently, San Mateo County has 65 deaths and 1,115 cases in total. There is Increased testing every day and means more cases are going to appear. However this does not necessarily mean that there will be a spike in deaths or hospitalizations.
Originally, two months ago in early March, the only advice for this virus was to “wash your hands, don’t touch your face.” Nobody expected the COVID disease to spread as quickly and severely as it did.
By Mid-March it was apparent this was quickly becoming a big deal. Supervisor Pine states that the Weekend of march 14 was historic as the beginning of the crisis. On Saturday, March 14th, the Health Officer of Santa Clara County called five other county Health Officers (including officer Scott Morrow of San Mateo County) and within 48 hours, on March 16th, the Shelter-in-Place order was drafted and put into effect. It was the first Shelter-in-Place order anywhere in the country.
The state of California followed 3 days later. The Counties’ quick action saved perhaps thousands of lives. Interestingly, this authority with S.I.P. orders rest with the health officers of each county. The SIP order was drafted in 48 hours, and did so with very little input from the state, feds, or even elected officials. Thankfully, the horrific surge that was expected did not come, and California was able to avoid a similar fate as New York.
San Mateo County took a very rapid response to try and suppress or prepare for a surge in cases, including:
- Taking over the Holiday Inn in burlingame for confirmed COVID-patients to isolate.
- Establishing a field hospital at the convention center, in partnership with the National Guard.
- Takeover of a significant part of Seton Medical Center.
Now the next task is to open things back up, slowly and in phases. In this area Governor Newsom and the counties are somewhat in alignment, but still different. For example, Right now, California has allowed curbside retail, and SMC does not. That may change soon, but shows that ultimately, society will open up at the county-level on a case by case basis. Currently the California standards for reopening require several metrics, including:
- No deaths over a 14 day period
- No new cases over a 14 day period.
- Testing 1200 people a day
San Mateo County currently meets the criteria related to deaths, but not with tests and new cases. Furthermore a side effect of testing so many people is that there will be more confirmed cases, though many of them will be asymptomatic. SMC currently tests about 700 people per day, and that is rising each day.
Supervisor Pine stated that what really stands out to him about this crisis:
- the vulnerability of seniors, especially those who live in facilities. San Mateo County has about 7,000 people who live in such assisted living or skilled nursing facilities. Over ½ of the deaths so far have been residents of such facilities. We need to focus on adequate testing and infection control protocols here.
- Supervisor Pine is shocked by how economically vulnerable our population is. So many people, even in SMC, live paycheck-to-paycheck, and thus it is incredibly difficult for people to make ends meet. DP puts it in the “hundreds of thousands” of people affected. A truly daunting economic crisis still looms.
