I still haven't seen any reporting on exactly why Santa Clara County is on the state watch list and shut down again.
The states website says we are currently shut down because our rate of hospitalization increased over the last 14 days faster than the 10% per period limit.
Web Link
The state provides four reasons why this happened. It says:
Santa Clara County is experiencing increased hospitalization. Drivers of increased hospitalization of COVID+ patients may include: 1) increased transmission in the community; 2) patient transfers from outside the county; 3) patient transfers from long term care facilities; 4) /or increased transmission among residents or individuals from neighboring counties who seek care in hospitals in Santa Clara County.
What no one has reported on, and what I can't find Santa Clara County disclosing anywhere is whether we are in the doghouse simply because the state has decided to transfer Covid patients from other counties (the southern border counties in the Central valley being the most likely candidates) into otherwise very underutilized Santa Clara County hospitals . If this is true, it's completely unfair to our local citizens and businesses to lock us down - no amount of mask wearing or social distancing will keep us out of lockdown if the reason we are in lockdown is because of transfers of sick patients into our county from the outside. San Mateo County reported last week that 40% of their hospitalized patients are from outside their county. Has anyone seen similar data for Santa Clara, or has anyone tried to ask Santa Clara what is going on here?
It also seems ridiculous that the covid 19 dashboards Santa Clara County provides Web Link
do not align with the state's four criteria above for whether we are on the watch list or not. If the state has four criteria for opening Santa Clara County, why doesn't the Santa Clara county dashboard explicitly show how we are doing against these criteria, and also list what we are doing to improve against each of them? It's very frustrating...

Dems will close down the country to damage Trump ! Bastards !!!

Dear Dan from Professorville,

Completely agreed.

I have given up looking for anything that tells us what's going on in Santa Clara County.

After four months I suppose that's the intention.

It's not supposed to make sense. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome. All the radical control-freak behavior of Democrat leaders like the ones that run CA is automatically justified if its the opposite of what Trump espouses. This is how low we've sunk, everything is stupidly polarized with no regard for nuance or objectivity.
I don't want to believe this but it seems to be the case.

Really depends on how quickly we can get the virus under control. We seemed to be in good shape a couple of months ago, but then carelessness let it run wild again in the USA. Many other countries have the virus under control and are apparently safely restoring their economies. Of course, one of their safety measures is banning immigration from the USA.

To be honest, what is keeping Silicon Valley afloat is the high tech companies and people working from home. An average high tech worker is still getting the same salary (and paying the same tax) which enables the worker and family to be able to eat at outside restaurants, buy online and at places like Costco, Home Depot, and particularly buy all the high tech gizmos and gadgets that keep their ability to work from home comfortably. Quite often it is their employers paying the bill! They are probably buying a lot more recreational gadgetry too so that their backyard and their kitchens are fully equipped to do what they please in their downtime.

Take Zoom as an example. They are benefiting from all the meetings people are doing from home, including things like online classes and online church. Many people are using zoom, but who is actually paying for a lot of the usage? I suggest many companies, schools, churches, etc. are the ones that are paying for it.

Think of all the charitable giving to food banks and other causes. Well partly businesses are contributing, but also those who are fully employed working from home tech workers who are still getting their full salaries.

Keeping people employed is what is keeping the restaurants and would keep the hair salons afloat if they were open.

People without jobs and getting their food from food banks are unlikely to be contributing much to the economy. Those who are still able to earn a living are very much needed to keep the rest of the economy going.

Dan - and don't expect Sara Cody to say or do anything about it. She has fought tooth and nail against even the slightest relaxation of the SIP. She is probably thrilled by the closures.

@really depends -- we NEVER had the virus "under control." We had the illusion of control. We wasted months focusing on enforcing a destructive stoppage that had to end sometime, when we could have been focusing on how to manage through the virus.

It's the difference between forcing someone to hold their breath indefinitely under water waiting for the ocean to evaporate, or helping them swim to the surface. The water will always be there. But in the first case that person is doomed to drown, which is is what we have been trying to do.

The virus is going to spread and our ONLY choice is whether we are going to multiply the damage in the meantime or figure out how to manage through it -- as we ALWAYS have in the past with other viruses and indeed with other risks in general.

@she cares not
I don't actually expect Sarah Cody to do anything other than to try to minimize the number of cases and deaths from Covid-19. She is our public health officer, and that's her sole charter - public health.
I can't tell if she is also taking into account the negative public health impacts of the lockdown, and weighing those against the virus reducing benefits of the lockdown. But presumably that should also be in her charter - minimizing the health impacts of covid-19 in total, both from the disease itself and also from the measures we take to mitigate it.
The people that I feel like are really letting us down are the executives to which people like Sara Cody report. It is their job to reconcile and balance economic damage and societal damage and public health. So the mayors, the city councils, the county boards of supervisors - aren't they supposed to take Sarah Cody as one input amongst many and then make balanced policy decisions based on all of these inputs? It feels to me like many of these executives have largely abdicated their responsibility, and are deferring entirely to the public health officers.
BTW the same train of thought goes to Dr Fauci. People are trying to hold him accountable for all kinds of stuff he is not responsible for. His job is narrowly to make sure we have the best public health response to the virus. I don't think that's fair either....

Dan-- I don't think she takes into account any of the negative impacts of the lockdown. I read that she was laser focused on the virus.
As far as lockdowns and openings, unfortunately Cody has the last word. Mayors, councils and supervisor may make suggestions but she does not answer to them.

So you see from above, no matter what damage Republicans do to our economy, our national standing and security, our quality of life, to life itself (closing in on 140,000 deaths, and Republicans are playing mean-spirited political games), they not only don't take any responsibility, they only know how to twist and lie and blame others. The latest incarnation being to label their political opponents with exactly their own sins. Since they are so untethered from the truth, they have no trouble doing this, pointing a finger at their straw men and screaming, foaming at the mouth. It's a deadly frightening version of high school, in which the stupid bullies have it out for the smart kids all over again, and they scream "he's bullying me!" when they get caught.

This is a difficult situation, I think it is the Republicans who just want to scream that it's all the Democrats fault. it is the Republican states, and the Republican parts of California that have seen the spikes, as they work the base to a frenzy over the "hoax" and make not wearing a mask into some warped rights issue. Manufacturing was already in a recession before the pandemic. The Trvmp import taxes and increases in income tax on the middles class were taking a toll before the pandemic. Farmers were struggling before the pandemic. Most measures of economic strength were actually better under Obama, who was handed an economy in freefall.

There's no scenario here where things get better in time for the election, but the lying plutocratic bully babies have an issue they can scream about and blame Democrats for if they don't wear their masks and the pandemic continues out of control. I'm not saying it's a plot. I'm saying there's not leadership concerned about our nation and people, and regardless of what happens, the administration is going to divide and point fingers and scream at political opponents (retweeting things like the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat), and the Republicans' only response is they'll turn around and scream that whatever the latest horror they're engaged in, the Democrats are doing (with zero evidence or sense to such accusations).

What a nightmare. We are being made vulnerable to our enemies and death from a pandemic. And yet, the party is pretty much all about lies for plutocracy.

Here is for those who like to share scripture with the VEEP
Proverbs 6:16-19
"There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers."

So sad to see the pathetic comments about politics being involved. A world Pandemic thats effecting all of us and people want to say its all the Dems doing. Pathetic excuse. Know unity even in a WORLD pandemic..

Lauren, I agree with you! It's a global pandemic -- all countries are affected -- which is why I tire of the constant accusations that it's President Trump's fault. If the deaths per capita are higher in Belgium, Italy, France, the UK, Spain, Sweden and Chile, how does that prove his response is significantly worse than other countries? Number of cases doesn't mean much if more than 90 percent of people who test positive are asymptomatic.

We're all in it together and its disgraceful that the coronavirus has become so politicized.

I agree with Resident from Midtown above.

I have just been reading how in other European countries they are just getting their act together about masks. They are way behind say California where we have had to wear a mask for months in shops, etc. They are just starting in various places in Europe.

Yet Europe are already playing sports, traveling, back to work for the main part. Different countries have had different rules and some of the worst affected from the virus are now much more open than we are here.

I can't believe that the political debate helps. There has been no "right way" to deal with this, just varying ways of the wrong way and generally it has been by trial and error.

I tend to think that living in Palo Alto we have generally been obeying the rules. Our numbers are going up and what is bothersome is that these numbers are being publicized daily without any type of data behind them. Our hospitals are getting patients from Imperial county, not from SCC county. These patients are bringing our numbers of hospitalizations up because our hospitals have space due to the fact that SCC residents are not getting sick enough to go to hospital. In fact are we actually getting sick here or just asymptomatic? I have just heard anecdotally that people who are testing positive and quarantining for 2 weeks and then being tested again and are still positive and still asymptomatic, are being counted as new cases each time they test positive. If retests are being counted as new cases it is obvious a reason why our numbers are going up.

The few people I know who have tested positive and were sick months ago are now well and back to full health. One person was in ICU and is now home and well enough working from home. I am not trying to play down the seriousness of the illness, but the hype may just be a lot worse than the reality for a lot of people. The fact is that we don't know. The number of cases that is rising each day doesn't mean they are all active cases. We just aren't being given enough factual information.

The media are a great deal at play here. They shouldn't be downplaying the virus, but they could at least be giving us real information rather than just adding to the numbers each day.

It is heartening to read that some people realize that saving lives has nothing to do with politics.
Wearing a mask is not a political statement. It is an IQ test.

@she cares not...
Wrong...she cares, and you do not! We are so undisciplined because we were taught that we had rights under the Constitution and that we could do anything and say anything we wanted to within the legal bounds of the Constitution. Well, that is a very old document and it's had 30 Amendments (I might be off by one or two) added to it, because they didn't get it right the first time. Get real, get a life, and save a life, in this 21st century. Take all your freedoms to spread the disease to a far away island. You and your ideas are not welcome here. Stop your opining and listen to the experts in the field, and that does not include Trump.

Other countries have figured it out. We haven't and it's because of our 'freedom to choose' culture, which I firmly believe in up to a point, but when it comes to the possibility of a million or more lives being lost in this country for no good reason, then I have to hold my hand up like a school crosswalk attendant and say 'stop'. And those beautiful kids with a whole life and future ahead of them obey. Some day they will be in charge and I'm sure they'll do a better job than we're doing now. They are smart and learn lessons from the mistakes of their parents, and us really old grandparents.

LOL. Gale johnson. Time to get of your soapbox now. I do care. I have been sheltering in place since March. I wear a mask when I go out. I go for shopping, take out and since June to the bookstore and to the libraries for outdoor pickup. So you know what you can do with your “take all your freedoms comment..... “, gale. My ideas may not be in agreement with yours but that does not mean I do not have the right to express them. What is really funny is that you mention trump and it is you who is being Trump like by rejecting letters opinions, well done, gale.

Just because I do not agree with her handling of the virus does not mean that I do not care about my fellow humans.

One of the reasons other countries have figured it out is that those countries can impose country wide rules and lockdowns, we are made up of 50 states and the federal government is limited in what they can order states to do. In addition in a state like California where you allow each county to decide what to do is also an issue.

All that said, there has been a massive of the federal government to act to curtail the pandemic. Unfortunately, your hero, trump has chosen to politicize the pandemic. While we would still have the virus here, the scope of the pandemic would have been more limited with a leader willing to take responsibility.

"If the deaths per capita are higher in Belgium, Italy, France, the UK, Spain, Sweden and Chile, how does that prove his response is significantly worse than other countries?"

Actually the US has the tenth highest death rate per capita and we are very quickly moving up the ladder as the countries above us bring the virus under control and we continue to see more and more infections and deaths in the US.

A horrible way to Make America Great Again.

Web Link

Death rate in UK is back to normal.

Monthly death rate including Covid deaths are back to normal monthly rate.

Web Link