As part of this dialogue, officials will discuss steps Humboldt County must take before beginning a phased reopening of our community. The discussion will be joined and moderated by Lost Coast Outpost Editor Hank Sims.
Topics will include:
- Necessary steps to begin reopening businesses and services
- Expanding testing capacity, disease surveillance and contact investigations
- Preparing for medical surge
- Public health risks of reopening the economy
- Public safety and enforcement of regulations.
This type of phased reopening seeks to save lives by controlling spread of the virus to the extent possible and preventing crisis-level impacts to the health care system, while also allowing some non-essential services to 2ndresume operations with limitations. Prolonged closure of most businesses comes with significant long-term risk as does reopening these services without a robust response plan in place.
Thursday’s broadcast will also include discussion of data modeling provided by the California Department of Public Health that outlines a range of possible scenarios for COVID-19 trajectory in Humboldt County.
County Health Officer Dr. Teresa Frankovich said, “Our community has done a great job adhering to social distancing measures. However, we fully expect an increase in cases as we ease shelter-in-place restrictions. Our goal this Thursday is to communicate clearly about steps we’ll need to take to keep community members safe while allowing for greater movement.”
Also to be discussed is the state’s roadmap to reopening, recently announced by Governor Newsom. Local officials will share progress made toward the state’s goals, which include expanded testing, preventing infection in higher risk groups, sufficient capacity of hospital beds and supplies, progress in developing therapeutic treatments, support for schools and businesses to implement physical distancing and developing protocols for reinstituting stay-at-home orders if needed.
Sheriff Honsal said, “Our number one priority is the safety and well-being of our community. We are dedicated to getting Humboldt County back to work, with a response plan that takes into account the health of the public. I encourage all members of our community to watch or listen to Thursday’s dialogue.”
The community can view the event live at:
- Access Humboldt’s YouTube Page
- Access Humboldt Channel 10
- WAVE7 (Southern Humboldt WAVE subscribers)
- Listen at KZZH-LP 96.7.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.