New report examines county government actions during pandemic – Palo Alto Daily Post

BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Editor of the Daily Post

“Lockdown,” “incursions” and “scary” are the most common terms residents used to describe Santa Clara County’s response to the Covid pandemic, according to a consultant’s just-released “after-action report.”

Santa Clara County fined nearly 400 businesses totaling about $5 million for violating county regulations during the pandemic.

“This was a far higher rate than in virtually all other surrounding Bay Area counties at the time, and there was little evidence that fines in Santa Clara resulted in better public health outcomes than in the region’s other counties,” wrote Dawn Thomas, executive director of CNA Corporation.

Following the county’s orders has been challenging because they are complicated, Thomas said.

“Many people, even public health experts, had difficulty interpreting health orders and understanding how the frequent changes affected daily activities and business conditions. For the business community, this challenge was even greater,” Thomas said.

For example, the county’s public relations staff recommended that the website read, “Remove your mask to eat or drink.” However, the county’s attorneys ignored that recommendation and had the website read, “Remove your mask only for biological purposes,” Thomas said.

She recommended writing materials at a fourth-grade reading level to the general public.

The county Board of Supervisors hired Thomas and CNA Corporation in October 2022 for $242,610 to review the pandemic and the county’s response.

Her 100-page report was published on Wednesday ahead of a meeting of the Health and Hospitals Committee. She did not name any names.

This includes not mentioning the names of Dr. Sara Cody, the county’s health officer, and former county manager Jeff Smith, the two people in the county administration who made many of the calls during the Covid shutdown.

Thomas said in an email yesterday that the county had removed quotes from her report that were used to support certain points.

“But that’s fair because it doesn’t affect the integrity of the results in any way,” Thomas said.

Their report focuses primarily on business activity in the county rather than on the impact it has had on residents and businesses.

For example, Thomas said county employees were suffering from burnout, but did not examine the impact of lockdowns on residents’ mental health.

According to a study published by the Royal Society for Public Health, the number of deaths from drugs and alcohol in the United States has increased “dramatically” during the pandemic.

All county employees received a $2,500 bonus for their work during the pandemic, including those who worked exclusively from home.

Supervisor Joe Simitian said the operational report is intended to evaluate the performance of the district government and not all external influences.

“The (report) we had in committee met the technical requirements for a feedback report, but left some major questions open that required discussion,” Simitian said yesterday.

Simitian said the scope of the report was determined by county staff and the consultant.

Simitian declined to comment on whether the report should have included the county’s legal dispute with Calvary Chapel in San Jose, which sued the county for $1.2 million in fines for holding indoor services.

Simitian is focused on who makes decisions in an emergency. Dr. Sara Cody has been given unprecedented powers as health commissioner, and Simitian was asked Wednesday what it would take to fire her — hypothetically.

County Executive James Williams said only the California Department of Public Health could override Cody’s orders, and only then-County Executive Jeff Smith could have fired her during the pandemic. The Board of Supervisors would provoke a lawsuit if it tried to fire Smith for not firing Cody, Williams said.

Cody defended her response on Wednesday, saying she imposed curfews because the federal government had not provided testing.

“I used the authority of a health officer on a matter that was a little more aggressive than my colleagues across the country because there were no other options,” Cody told the Health and Hospitals Committee. Simitian said residents have lost confidence in public health orders because they are inconsistent, even between San Mateo County and Santa Clara County.

“I’ve received questions and comments from people wanting to know why there was a different rule for lunch in Menlo Park than for dinner in Palo Alto. That seemed hard for a lot of people to understand,” he said.

Williams defended Cody, saying coordination with the state and federal governments has been challenging and that not all orders have been made by them. For example, schools are under the supervision of the California Department of Education and local districts, Williams said.

“One of the things we’ve done very well locally is respond quickly and forcefully. Dr. Cody deserves a lot of credit for carrying that burden of decision-making,” Williams said.

Santa Clara County had the highest Covid-related death rate per capita in the nine-county Bay Area. According to state records, a total of 1,901 Santa Clara County residents died from the virus through November 2021, or 96.6 deaths per 100,000 residents.