{"id":100023730,"date":"2020-04-29T18:12:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T18:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healdsburgtribune.com\/News\/county-opens-parks-shelter-in-place-looms\/article_f34102e0-8a44-11ea-ab0b-6f35f3374271.html"},"modified":"2020-04-29T18:12:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T18:12:00","slug":"county-opens-parks-shelter-in-place-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healdsburgtribune.com\/county-opens-parks-shelter-in-place-looms\/","title":{"rendered":"County opens parks, shelter-in-place looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the pandemic wears on, the eighth COVID-19 Town Hall from Northern California Public Media brought good news and bad news to Sonoma County residents. The good news is that local parks will be reopening this week \u2014 though only for those who can get there on two legs (or two wheels). The bad news is you\u2019ll be eager to take advantage of those outdoor opportunities because the shelter-in-place order is about to be extended.
\n\u201cSo many community members have reached out to the supervisors \u2026 saying \u2018We want access to our parks!\u2019 We\u2019ve heard you, and we\u2019ve been advocating for this to happen,\u201d said Susan Gorin, chair of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.\u00a0
\nGorin called it \u201ca soft opening\u201d of the parks, noting that the park will remain closed to automobiles.
\n\u201cYou’ll have to find the closest park to your house so that you can walk or ride your bike,\u201d she said.
\nThough local and regional parks will be reopened, beaches will remain closed, she said.
\nLater in the program, Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase added that people will be required to maintain a social distance of at least maintain a social distance of at least six feet in the parks and will also need to carry a mask \u2014 though they don\u2019t necessarily need to wear it. Mase said parks will open for on-trail hiking and biking, but that picnics, off-trail hiking and large gatherings in the park are still off-limits. She said that park goers\u2019 cars spotted in park parking lots (or even in nearby neighborhoods) would be cited.
\nShe also encourage people to use common sense.
\n\u201cIf you arrive at the park and it looks really busy, just turn around and go home and plan to return at a later time,\u201d she said.
\nMase also confirmed that she would be extending the shelter-in-place order, though she declined for the moment to say for how long. Six other Bay Area counties announced on Monday that they were extending the shelter-in-place order until May 31. Mase said she will be announcing the extension later in the week and will provide an ending date at that time.
\nCrushing the curve<\/strong>
\nMase said that Phase Two modeling shows that Sonoma County has been spectacularly successful at flattening the curve, so much so that even at peak case load, she doesn\u2019t expect it to threaten the abilities of local health care resources to respond.
\n\u201cIt seems like shelter in place has been incredibly effective,\u201d Mase said. \u201cI think that\u2019s really the main message that we have from the new modeling. It looks as if it was much more effective than even the modelers predicted. We thought that the shelter-in-place would reduce transmission of the virus from one person to another by about half, but it\u2019s actually more like 75%,\u201d she said, noting that that meant that each new COVID-19 case was passing on the virus to fewer than one other person.
\nMase thanked community members for their strict adherence to the shelter-in-place order and said they were responsible for the fortunate position Sonoma County finds itself in with only 227 cases, half of those recovered, half active, and still only two deaths.
\nIn fact, Mase said, the surveillance testing that the county has been doing has thus far found no cases among at-risk populations like jail inmates, the homeless and the elderly in congregate settings like assisted living or skilled nursing facilities.
\nThe only way to preserve the county\u2019s low case count, Mase said, is to step up mitigation measures \u2014 such as extensive testing and contact tracing \u2014 as the county begins to slowly and carefully lift one restriction at a time.
\nAt a briefing earlier in the day, Mase said the county was currently conducting around 200 tests a day and that it planned, with the help of the state, to increase that to 600 to 800 cases a day next week.
\nShe said tests would be available to the following groups in this order: health care works\u00a0 who are either symptomatic or asymptomatic; first responders who are symptomatic or asymptomatic; people over 65 and people with underlying medical conditions who are symptomatic; essential infrastructure workers who are symptomatic; and then, after that, members of the general community who have symptoms of the virus.
\n\u201cI think within the next several weeks we’ll be seeing widespread community testing as well,\u201d Mase said.
\nMase also said the county has stepped up its contact tracing.
\n\u201cRight now our disease control nurses follow up with all of the contacts to our cases. And we have people, volunteers at home, that are actually calling the contacts every few days to see if they’re going to become symptomatic. We also test all of our contacts at about seven days after they\u2019re initially identified. And what we’re planning to do is scale that up,\u201d she said.
\nLooking forward<\/strong>
\nEven though the county is planning to extend shelter-in-place, Mase said it\u2019s also looking to the future when shelter-in-place will end.
\nMase said the county was considering easing restrictions on certain businesses like construction in the near future. She also said, \u201cWe are working with different businesses and entities to try to establish plans and best practices for when we do open up \u2014 things like social or physical distancing, facial coverings and temperature checks.\u201d
\nMase said the county plans to repeal restrictions slowly, one at a time, so it can gauge their effect.
\n\u201cWe are going to closely monitor what happens as we loosen our restrictions and see if we’re having a lot more cases,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the pandemic wears on, the eighth COVID-19 Town Hall from Northern California Public Media brought good news and bad news to Sonoma County residents. The good news is that local parks will be reopening this week \u2014 though only for those who can get there on two legs (or two wheels). The bad news is you\u2019ll be eager to take advantage of those outdoor opportunities because the shelter-in-place order is about to be extended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1100,"featured_media":200023730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n