Stores' new social distancing rules are helping, Lane County officials say

Some stores are limiting the number of customers allowed inside at one time.

The reaction by modly.

>> live, local, late breaking, this is kezi 9 news breaking news.

>> i'm brian anderson.

Lane county public health is holding a press khanh presence right now on the newest caift in western oregon.

>> had to do with covid, other medical conditions and was tested while in the hospital.

I wanted to bring to your attention some new information we have about one of our cases we announced yesterday.

The gentleman in his 40s from the uh jeeng springfield area.

That piece of information is through our contact investigations we were able to trace back how he initially contracted covid and where that point of contact happened.

That is establishing that epidemiological link which means we know how he got sick and are able to trace that back then start working backwards from there and understand to a greater capacity how the disease is moving through our community.

Another piece that i would like to also highlight is this came from a conversation i had earlier today with dr. w atky, looking at various disease spreads starting with wuhan, china, and other areas and there seems to be a commonality between when they first saw their first cases start to pop up and when they saw the greatest spike or that initial exponential curve and roughly it's around six weeks out from that initial symptom onset.

We are now 38 days out from our first case initial symptom onset, so we are watching attentively over the next couple of weeks for the situation because this really will be a pivotal time that will help define the over all trajectory of our situation in lane county.

For the public really what that means is just the expectation that if we're going to see the high number of cases we can expect that to be happening in the next few weeks and to brace for that.

Hopefully of course the methods put in place both through social distancing at the state level and requirements and guidelines handed down there, also the public participation that we have seen happen in our community will pay dividends and we'll not see that exponential spike, that we will see a gradual trickling of cases, a plateau then fall-off.

That's ultimately what we are hoping for.

I would also like to point out the fact that typically as an informational tool we really draw attention to where the problems are in the community in hopes that we can see improvement on those problems. when it comes to social distancing, we have highlighted areas where we could do better and certainly we can always do better, however i think it's important to acknowledge the fact that from our surveillance and what we have seen so far the majority of the community really is following social distancing.

That impact is being felt on our over all case trajectory.

Thank you for everyone doing their part by staying home and keeping up that distance.

You are actively slowing down the spread of covid-19 and helping uh flatten the curve.

At this time i will take any questions from members of the media.

>> we'll start with two questions from michael at kezi.

The first is whether or not lane county public health has explored the idea of having a centralized hospital and if that were to happen would it allow for other services to resume?

>> he would like to know whether or not lane county has explored the option of a centralized hospital for covid patients and whether or not it would be an advantage in our ability to treat patients during the surge or if there was a surge.

Yes, we have absolutely considered that option.

That is a tactic largely employed in areas where they have public hospitals.

Of course you know all our hospitals in lane county are private.

The way which we see patients is a little different in terms of not having that centralized resource.

Now, if we did get to a situation where we exacerbated or exhausted, rather, our capacity to treat covid-19 patients, then a triage facility could be set up where patients could potentially be sort of centralized in that capacity, but right now based on the data and the boots on the ground response that we're seeing, that would not be a needed strategy.

We do have -- we convene all of our hospital partners and other responders weekly and we talk about the different objectives and strategies to employ.

That meeting is happening tomorrow.

It happens weekly.

On tomorrow's agenda is that very topic about how we disburse and centralize so lootling at both models.

We have considered it.

It's just not the right move right now.

>> are the latest models showing decrease in the number of projected cases compared to previous models?

>> so another question from michael is are the current models that lane county is using projecting a decrease in over all number of cases.

Basically i think michael was trying to get at is that number changing.

Are we projecting out fewer cases.

A, it's too soon to tell.

I think that part of the problem with a disease cycle, outbreak, is that we can certainly have interventions, we can have a lot of tracking and data collection but ultimately the virus has a mind of its own and will move in whichever ways it sees fit.

Then we try to predict that.

Our best guess, though, is that what we see on our current models and these are current models that project out that beak around may 6th.

That's going to be a sooner peak so you're looking at end of april for that peak.

Within each scenario there's three scenarios.

One is do very little.

One do a moderate amount, the final one is aggressive measures, which we haven't completely fallen into that category but where we are seeing movement is in that moderate category.

The initial projections really looked at case numbers and peak times based on sort of a median frame within that range.

So what could very well happen is movement within that range.

The initial numbers are cumulative outside of portland metro within our current actions of between five and 10,000 cases and a daily peak of potentially upwards of 2500 from 1800 to 2500.

However, it's good to acknowledge the fact that that range on the moderate levels could go down as far as 400 all the way up to potentially over 16, 1700 per day.

That's all of oregon outside of the portlad metro area.

To answer your question, michael, the answer would be that there is a range and i think that given the current modeling and the data that we're seeing that we are expecting the number to be lower than the initial figures and that really again goes back to the community involvement and participation that we have seen on measures like social distanceing and staying at home.

Really if we continue to double down on those effortsened we see this through, through the peak, through the plateau and down the other side, then that will help us get to a place where we have fewer over all cases.

We have fewer daily cases.

We have less loss of life, and we have a greater capacity to serve people.

Those are all the objectives that we're working towards and hoping for.

>> question from rachel.

She notes that l.a.

Residents are being advised not to leave their homes for ten days including not to go to the grocery store, apparently.

>> the question from rachel at klcc, los angeles residents are being told to not leave their home for ten days, and she's wondering whether or not that recommendation is being considered here locally.

Rachel, i have not heard any talk of that sort of recommendation coming to lane county residents and certainly not from lane county public health at this time.

So what's really important for folks to understand is the way our public health system works is that it's graduated from the federal to the state level to the local health departments and the reason being is that each individual community, each county has specific needs and has a different way of operating and meeting those needs.

So what's right for los angeles during this time may not be what's right for lane county.

We really need to pick the objectives and the actions that are going to strike that balance of maintaining some semblance of a life with also social distanceing and staying at home and trying to curb the spread of disease.

I believe that we are doing an adequate job of tracking and making sure that our recommendations are commensurate to where we're at and what we need.

Certainly you're going to see different measures employed aacross the cund.

They are faced with the same challenges and same decision making capacity.

>> jordan brown with the register guard.

[audio not understandable] >> jordan brown from register guard asks we have mentioned that there are areas where social distancing can be improved.

Can you give us examples of those areas.

What i would probably point to is both an area of improved and also improvement just in the last 48 hours on that piece.

We mentioned grocery stores a number of times and the challenges inherent within that situation.

Knowing that we need to keep the stores open for folks to be able to get basic necessities and food but also acknowledging the fact that we have a lot of people staying home all day long and depleting their resources quickly and need to make trips to the grocery store.

It's resulted in situations inside the grocery store where social distancing isn't happening and it's not limited to one store.

This is a challenge felt by numerous grocery stores.

What we saw happen this week is stores limiting the number of people who can come in at any one time to facilitate that distanceing and make it easier throughout the store for that to happen.

Just by that one move, that's helping the over all social distancing.

I think we have seen trouble just with the interactions that are so routine for us people applying that new lens about keeping the distance but also being able to make those necessary transactions and government can give guidance on that but ultimately there's a learning curve and people have to get used to that.

Earlier on we saw some confusion and just getting used to doing life as normal or as usual while keeping social distancing.

Those necessary transactions, et cetera.

But now we're seeing more and more people adapting and figuring out how to do simple things like take their dog on a walk while keeping social distancing.

Buy a coffee if they need one while keeping social distancing happening.

We're seeing that from the business owners and from the community.

Certainly in those everyday interactions we can expect there to be missteps and there to be improvement.

>> back to rachel at klcc, wondering if any concern over warmer weather and the passover and easter holidays will mean social distancing harder.

>> another question from rachel, wondering about the religious holidays coming up this weekend and also the warmer weather that's also happening this week and carrying over into the weekend and whether or not that could potentially make social distancing a challenge.

Whether or not public health is concerned about that.

Yes, absolutely we are concerned about that.

Knowing that these are very important holidays for many people and the need to observe those holidays is certainly not gone away.

We do expect, and we have seen evidence of this, that many of our faith-based organizations are seeking alternative routes to be able to observe those holidays while maintaining social distancing, so having their church services online and then also areas where there would be necessary socialization happening online.

We are aware of a few places in the county that need some additional communication on how to observe that and so we're making those connections to our liaison branch within our emergency operations and continuing those conversations.

I think it's reasonable that people need to be reminded.

Again, we tried to stress that this is not normal.

This is not life as normal, so part of that means reminding and helping people understand the over all impact they have through the decisions that they make on a daily basis.

The other piece is the warmer weather.

So i think in terms of a disease response we have been very fortunate to have some rain.

The natural elements that have helped us want to stay indoors and not get wet.

The weather is changing.

I can see blue sky now, so obviously i think we have to as a community remember the impact we can have on that curve and balance the need for fresh air and to step outside with the need to keep your distance from folks.

We're not saying that people can't go outdoors right now.

Only go outdoors if you have a specific need that is essential.

Walking your dog, you dog needs to go to the bathroom, that's an essential need.

Do that but do it wisely.

Maybe stay away from the sunbathing and unnecessary time outside where you're not necessarily giving other people the opportunity to be able to get out.

I think all of this comes down to personal discretion and the assumption that we at public health has that our community understands what's at stake here and will behave responsibly.

That's the best that we can hope for then we can watch that unfold over the next few days.

If we don't see it happening we'll be making the phone calls we need to make and touching base with key groups within our community to try to encourage social distanceing and staying home.

[audio not understandable] the question comes from james and he was asking about law enforcement and what with a potential peak coming in the next few weeks what additional steps are law enforcement taking.

I just talked to a member of our sheriff's office.

They are ppe available if they get called into a scenario where they have interaction with an individual who may be having symptoms. they have training on how to interact with individuals on a routine basis but maintain that social distancing.

I know that's happening for our other law enforcement agencies.

Currently we're communicating with our partners almost on a daily basis really trying to get them the best information so that they can have a good baseline from which to start from.

Law enforcement is moving like the rest of our community and our partners in tandem.

We're all moving through this together and we're sharing resources and sharing information.

I think that's the best case scenario at this point and i think that we at least in terms of communication are heading into the spike and the peak