July 28th , 2020 Covid workshop between City of Fresno and County of Fresno at 2220 Tulare St in the ballroom Watch here fresnocounty.granicus.com/player/event/d…
Councilmember Caprioglio is driving somewhere in a Montana canyon so he may be dropping in and out of cell coverage. Buddy Mendes says “since this is the County we start on time “.
Starting at 9:04 am. Mendes hopes this workshop will help give clarity to Covid in Fresno County. This workshop is only for facts. No pontificating. Up first:
Department of Public Health Update (Director Pomaville and Dr. Vohra).
Department of Public Health Update (Director Pomaville and Dr. Vohra).
@MiguelArias_D3 says slides are not readable from their angle. “ICU beds have been stable at 65 over past few days.” Says Pomaville.
Working with schools and colleges closely senior living in skilled ,faith based organizations as well as homeless task force is working with businesses and Ag liaison. Food service industry including the California restaurant association.
Bulk buying PPE and other things that were hard to get and distributing those to people who need them. Current volume of testing is 2100 to 2400 test per day. Building capacity in the primary care system as well as mobile testing
Dr. Vohra is now speaking. “Lessons learned: March was the first test found. Is when city of Fresno shelter put in as well as state wide shelter schools closed other activities stop to slow the spread
April the curve stays flat testing capacity was not great but it was expanding hospitals and doctors report if you were patient visits and the governors roadmap to recovery included six steps that included testing contact tracing hospital surge capacity and effective treatments.
In May our case counts kept rising including fatalities Fresno city College in Sanger had early testing set up sites. Business is anxious to reopen quarantine fatigue.
June brought opportunities to work with various things like Ag, schools as well as restaurants but cases began to rise very rapidly as we had some businesses opening too early
July has become a disaster with the surge all cities and ZIP Codes in Fresno county are now affected we are very concerned at this time fatality rate approximately 1% all ages 45 or greater for 50% of the cases the source is unknown which indicates Broad community spread.
We need to work together in order to bring the spread to a manageable level. Community hospital is having to have outdoor tents for emergency care services all hospitals have to do the same very unusual circumstances
Successful navigation of this crisis is still possible. Doing things outside is preferable. Slow the spread OR build more medical capacity. 6-12 months for proven vaccine to be reliable. Drugs will not reverse every complication. No silver bullet. Supplies are short including PPE
Herd immunity doesn’t work for all viruses or we would not still have HIV , Hep C etc.
We can add more medical staff and locations. Testing and faster results. Infective people need a place to quarantine. Other counties have done that successfully.
Some of the problems we face. Virus exploits a lot of issues in our community.
Buddy Mendes asks how much longer ? “Last slide”. Supervisor Pacheco says we have handed out lots of supplies. What has rural received ? Pomaville says Ag was worked with as they are main work place. Employee screening done. Investigated areas that have been problematic
Vohra says we have worked to find where issues are and how to reach out to farmworkers ans construction workers as they have to be onsite to work. Farmworker testing in rural areas. We can’t do all the testing ourselves but have taught our models to others. Employment history
of those who have been infected is searched for. If a break out occurs at a worksite the employers are to notify all workers. Delay in results being returned. Rural medical care is difficult. Information gaps occur as there is some fear by farmworkers. Mobilization of help
is coming. @BuddySupervisor cuts off @MiguelArias_D3 and calls on @kmkarbassi instead. Arias not happy. Karbassi “once this is over there will be problems with economic issues of families. How do we fix that?” Dr Vohra: we need to fix biggest problem now and deal with business
failures or children behind in school or paying back rent. But we need to deal with Covid first and deal with other big issues later. @stevebrandau Governor’s commitment to Valley how will that help convention center field hospital? A: can’t pull medical from our own hospitals
but hire from outside. 250 beds at field hospital. Porterville has 50 beds but only 15 patients as it is hard to find stable patients. Navy ships were vastly underused. @MayorLeeBrand When will county start having outlines? A:Plans and goals are needed. We’ve had to build a plane
While in the air we’ve had to make incremental decisions the only vaccine we have is social distancing of 6 feet. @Esmeralda_Soria Thanks the doctor for outlining what lessons have been learned where should the county go and where the curve is that? A:Vohra says Once we slow the
Then we can start thinking about re-opening businesses and other sectors we will proceed cautiously though otherwise will just create more problems it is a real balance as as you reopen it will create more case counts if those accounts rise astronomically then we will have huge
As her medical facilities can’t keep up at that point it is just a matter of numbers but we just can’t overwhelm our support and resources once we get to that point then we can re-open various sectors 1 foot on the gas and 1 foot on the break and play it by ear it can be disorien
-ing But that is where we are at unregulated social behavior is maybe our biggest problem as Buddy Mendes? Yes gatherings weddings or issues we need protective measures for essential workers and their two biggest steps we can take and real progress without having to shut down
County Administrative Officer - Jean Rousseau CARES Act Overview. We are first responders and we can use City’s help we excepted the cares act funding on April 28 while at a supervisor meeting update given on July 4 as to where we are at and what we have spent
The presentation today will be very similar to the July 7 meeting. We will receive approximately $98 million
At the bottom you’ll see that we cannot use this money to replace revenue shortfalls which will probably be between 30 and $40 million for the county and the city will be facing similar
We have added 100 of our employees at this problem about 25% of our public health workers and so we have thrown a lot of resources into this took a lot of infrastructure to get people to work at home with laptops monitors etc.
We had to run for county as usual business while the same time fighting this pandemic it is very hard to do we’ve had to prepare our county offices for public health prevention how can we social distance splatter guards all those items
We have spent about $27 million on jail medical enhancements we have learned a lot but this problem will be going on for at least a year if not longer we are meeting virtually where we can and have used our technology where we have been able to two contracts for the jails will go
To the board of supervisors and that will only get us through December contact tracing may have to be made permanent. Alternative care site has $11 million put aside because they cost about $2 million a month education and out reach has 7 million put aside this budget is squishy
As it is not set in stone and changes a bit each testing site such as Fresno city College or Sanger or in West Fresno cost about $450,000 per month and if we need to start picking up those costa it will be expensive for us. Homelessness could have its own workshop we try to get
As many of the homeless off the streets and any help the city can provide would be appreciated if the city has any extra cares money a good place to put it would be at the homeless situation agencies will be dealing with this pandemic past December so hopefully we will get money
Past that date from the federal government we will looking at buying a hotel to help place homeless inside there they are the most vulnerable population in our county tell him medicine quarantine rooms PPE has been provided we have done in the last couple months what we’ve done
In the last five years we were able to provide PPE to various businesses such as dentist and then allowed them to re-open we need to promote that more to businesses getting the word out and messaging could have been better but we are doing better on the more press.
Our call centers were Inundated we have these various parts of money. We will be blowing through this money due to this pandemic and we can’t hold back money just to be conservative. @GarryBredefeld What is average depth of a Covid patient?A: None Younger than 45 they are about
Mask make it much less likely to get Covid. Bredefeld: Why were prisoners just given masks rather than being released from jail? A:By releasing him from jail we are providing bigger space between inmates you are conflating two issues. Bredefeld: Why can’t kids go to schools?
Mendes: ask bredefeld to take this question offline. Quintero:What are we doing to provide ZIP Codes that are low income? Extended families living together. Pomaville: It is an area of a significant concern the home environment may be a bigger problem than the workplace to contro
In homes better educations is going to be needed people to give them the idea that it was safe to go out again and it has not been the case we need to target resources and allow people to quarantine better. @PaulCaprioglio We have productive meetings with the county and the city
Get together and I suggest monthly meetings like this. Mendes cuts him off as he wants no statements. @Esmeralda_Soria We have learned that essential workers such as farm workers have been impacted by Covid by their circumstances and don’t get paid leave protections they may not
Up to get testing as they cannot afford to lose a paycheck is the county finding a way that people can stay home and still get a paycheck and not spread the infection in our community can in the county add this to their budget?Families have been affected by reduction of hours or
A job that all in order to prevent homelessness. Mendes says Soria’s question was so long that she used all her time. Arias asks a question and Mendes sharply cuts him off. Soria: can my question be answered ?? City’s Tim Orman : The city represents 53% of the county
So we can be a partner in helping in fighting this pandemic. We have been working on a spending plan for the Covid cares act money
$5 million for housing help 3.5 million will be parceled out through December and possibly in the March is the federal government agrees more food assistance homeless transitional housing $4.5 million
Better serve our constituents with parks community centers and arts and culture at $4 million small business grants of $110,000
Childcare vouchers will be even more important if schools do not open
$2 million put aside for contact tracing is in the initial stages
Teleworking of city employees has been very helpful and efficient $1 million in PPE purchasing these are buckets and money can be moved around as needed
The mayor and the city would like a way to share data with the county and have more joint public meetings
@LuisCha70215912 Thanks to CAO for responding to questions. Would like city Council to be briefed as to where the hotspots are in the city as far as ZIP Codes whether convalescent hospitals or other. UCSF has mobile testing sites.
The problem is test take 10 to 13 days to come back can the city and county jointly by testing facilities ourselves in order to speed up results and emergency plan needs to have a pandemic component as this can come back we need toFormalize what that would be like. Monthly basis
Joint meetings would be very helpful and would like this to be considered by the board I think there’s consensus on the city side as we need to have that data in order to make decisions. Pomaville: Skilled nursing facilities are all high-risk and focusing efforts there makes sens
It would be great if you could have 24 hour turnaround time on our test results there are smaller labs that can turn around quicker than larger places like quest the technology behind rapid test hopefully become better as we don’t have a good test like that
Agreement with Fresno state in order to develop labs as the counties lab was destroyed by a flood we are slowly building our land we hope to be occupying that in October but we are still set up at Fresno state currently a second machine is being used once it arrives but large
demand for those machines. Chavez says we have been working with UC San Francisco and would be happy to share with the county to help provide solutions. A: We have asked to stay to help us test in a rural areas unfortunately false negatives is high and we weren’t people may
Spread the disease once they get home. Supervisor Pacheco asks Tim Orman how much money City has spent. Also the relationship Between the county and the city has frayed the last few months I would like to reestablish those meetings between the two would help quite a bit and the
The people would benefit as well orman says the city of spent $35 million so far we would also like to reestablish meetings between the city and county. @MiguelArias_D3 City is worried about a second wave from this pandemic or using this money for lost revenue if the federal
The federal government allows us to do that the problem is that we are getting pandemic data through the paper and not directly from the county. Mendes: This is a two-way street as the city can send us an invitation and we will send somebody back. @MayorLeeBrand would like to
Start meeting again as well as getting together with schools as that affects both the city and the county. Soria: Since we have time Ken some of our questions to be answered now. Brandau : He has a staff member that was tested for Covid they took 14 days for results to come back.
Luckily it came back negative but he would be willing to buy equipment together in order to speed up the testing results. Orman: About $47 million has not been spent or allotted for yet the county and city has been jointly buying PPE equipment together for the past few months
@LincolnSeward Magisg:A commitment between the two has happened such as those PPE but we would love to work better together we all have different lenses on how to approach this we have heard our priorities from the city and we need to have the county do the same
Pomaville: Support for essential workers and then we can get quarantine support with wage support and replacement and housing costs we did a double down on social distancing as a community that would be led by all of us communicating that from different ways
Expand testing and medical investigations such as tracing Has to be done more as we go forward. @MiguelArias_D3 Orman Presentation said with the cities priority is very well we do need guidance as to what are the gaps the county has and that we can help
Rousseau Opportunity with homeless with the city such as the hotels through December those are low hanging fruit education in certain ZIP Codes such as advertising TV radio would be very helpful as well or too easy solutions the county
Is first responder as well as dealing with jails we need to be very mindful as we’re going to blow through this money very quick income replacement has not been looked at due to our budget being stretched already we can do what we can afford ad hoc group
Would be very helpful due to cities thoughts on certain hotels not being up to code we have switched to other hotels so those kind of things are very helpful. Arias: We would like better results of where covid outbreak has occurred so people can make better choices. Pomaville
People are worried about losing their job if information gets sent to the employer but we have gotten good cooperation from most employers some of our best results have been when the employer has reached out to us contact tracing has occurred due to HR
Add those employees places we have gotten good support from the state lately with their coordinated effort we do think we need to focus on essential workforce we can do a better job of supporting collectively. Karbassi: we all have different areas we represent but we are working
And cooperation is real and we take responsibility moving forward. Mendes: County does a lot of things that the city does not know. Rousseau: CBOs and Social services department work well together to get the biggest bang for the buck. @esparza_nelson as we sit here and hear how
employers have been helpful but is county open to mandating that they report. Would it help if City find that data? Pomaville: City Reaching out to the larger employers would be helpful some employers are reluctant at least initially but they are worried about Misinformation
Leaking out or their employee being infected outside the workplace and bringing it back but the workplace gets punished. Employers Are worried about what will happen when they are allowed to open still I’m not sure if the mandate will be beneficial without more discussion.
Congressman Jim Costa:He and congressman TJ Cox sent a letter to the supervisors on Friday. Glad you were our meeting together should’ve been earlier The house of representatives has passed five different measures that were by Bipartisan. Pandemic will be with us rest of this
Year and into next year he is concerned with harvest season and farmworkers making it hard to social distance in packing sheds and Fields. We need to get past politics and not politicize a pandemic full coordination is the best solution
A Valleywide solution is the best thanks to Governor for providing more money heroes act will provide money for states. The Senate version does not have support for states counties and cities that needs to change. Six hospitals in his district and they are overwhelmed
In uncharted waters we must be coordinated. Mendes cuts off Costa. Now Assemblyman Dr. Joaquin Arambula (speaks in Spanish) Urgency is a word he keeps using as essential workers bring up that we need faster test results 13,000 in just the county seven have died
Hispanics make up a disproportionate amount of those being infected we need transparency from the county as to how they will spend their federal dollars given to fight this pandemic and why haven’t they been spent quicker and more deliberately have they met with the public
especially those who don’t speak English. Why having testing sites been put into rural areas especially west of the 99 freeway people have to rely on food distributions just to survive I have worked on health equity why having testing sites been put into rural areas especially
West of the 99 I’ve seen many families having to rely on food distribution stuff to survive we need to have health equity. Mendes cuts him off and goes to public comments Leslie Martinez: various letters and comments she has sent to this board has been largely ignored
Her constituents tell her the problems from this pandemic. Invest in democracy rent help mobile testing in rural communities broadband infrastructure. Mendes cuts her mic. Next: pharmacist Community is walking around in fear. Disagree with Dr. Vohra fatality rate. It is much
lower. She Questions to data given. Ask do nothing to help next public comments from Clovis parents and staff in Clovis want to go back to school the governor took that away it will have on students and their education gaps.
Next: Pastor says we cannot ignore Each other. What is right and what is wrong. He has dedicated himself to god’s work such as Dr Arambula dedicating himself to medical equity. Faith can go along way. Next:pastor of breaking free church. Search goers are intertwined in this
This community we are the shiny belt buckle in the state our church is did not rise to the level of a cannabis store or the liquor store churches can live stream or meet in small groups but we need trust. Next: Central Valley Roundtable leader says Rest In Peace San Joaquin
CIty Council member Jose Ornelas who passed away recently from Covid. San Joaquin member sewed 2000 masks. Rent relief is needed. Firebaugh preovjded Handwashing stations immediately. We need county to step forward and spend money now. Cuts him off. Next: Spiritual health is
needed. The governor says we need to meet outside. This meeting is indoors. We just ask to have the same. We want to have small meetings. Next: disappointed That one society opened up a number shot up. Packing houses in Hanford had over 200 infections but then the information
the information stopped flowing from County. When true numbers come out...next : leadership counsel rep The county has failed democracy but the city has done a good job in that way people need to be able to comment live and in their preferred language
The county has sat on money that could’ve been helping our community and economy we just released that money no less than the September budget meetings by the county food aid and act swiftly
Pedro Hernandez of Audobon Society. Think the county should listen to the best scientist. @Soypedroh4 We are compromising My family’s health as well as the whole committee for every second we wait lack of decision making affects the most vulnerable
Ask the chairman to pay attention utility foods and rent assistance is needed. Next:@LovesMercy Fill in the gap’s for the homeless the homeless count is too low there are many that want housing but it’s not available mobile testing out to the homeless camps provide masks and
Hand sanitizer as well as safe places to camp and not be driven out by the county or the city help those in rural areas. Mendes: and With that this meeting is done. Next supervisor meeting will be August 4.
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