County’s Covid ‘debriefing report’ ignores key concerns – Palo Alto Daily Post

OPINION

BY DAVE PRICE
Editor of the Daily Post

A year after the due date, Santa Clara County has finally released a state-required “after action” report analyzing how well the county government handled the Covid pandemic.

I guess it’s too much to ask that the county make a direct and honest assessment of its own performance.

This report is inadequate in many respects:

Deaths

• The report did not explain why the per capita Covid death rate in Santa Clara County was higher than in other Bay Area counties.

Related Deaths

• The report is silent on the number of “deaths of despair,” that is, the number of people who died by suicide, drug addiction or alcohol because their lives were ruined by the lockdown. If we ever experience another lockdown, we should know how to avoid these deaths. But this report doesn’t help us.

Action against the church

• The report does not shed light on the county’s decision to ban indoor worship services. Churches said the ban was unfair because they were held to different standards than secular places like Home Depot or Costco, which were allowed to remain open. The U.S. Supreme Court lifted the county’s ban on indoor worship services in an unusual evening hearing. The Supreme Court’s interference in the dispute was an embarrassment for Santa Clara County, the only county in the United States to be reprimanded by the Supreme Court for its rigorous pandemic rules.

Testing and vaccination

• The report does not address why the county got off to such a slow start in conducting Covid testing and distributing the vaccine.

The report should have assumed that this pandemic would repeat itself in the future and that county authorities could improve systems for testing and vaccine distribution. But there is none of that in this report. It is as if everything they did was fine and there was no need for improvement.

Impact on business

• There is no discussion about closing local businesses.

Nationally, about a third of all small, independent businesses were ruined by forced closures, despite no evidence that they were spreading the virus.

That report did not mention how many businesses in the county permanently closed or how many workers lost their jobs.

And the report did not answer the question that many local business people were asking: Why were national chains allowed to stay open, but independent local stores had to close?

Covid fines

• The report honestly admitted that Santa Clara County penalized businesses for Covid violations much more aggressively than other counties. Nearly 400 businesses were fined a total of $5 million. However, the report, written by an outside consultant, said it was “difficult” for businesses to comply with the county’s rules because they changed frequently, sometimes daily. As a result, businesses were being fined even though they tried to comply with the law.

Inconsistency

• The report did not address a glaring inconsistency in social distancing rules. During the George Floyd protests in May and June 2020, social distancing rules were not enforced. At the same time, however, county rules prohibited gatherings at movie theaters, Sharks games, high school sports, and churches. The report does not explain this inconsistency.

• According to the report, the blame for the closure of schools is attributed to the state government.

No names

The report did not mention any names of county decision makers, so there is no way to hold individuals accountable. I guess that’s something you’d expect from a county that paid $2,500 Covid bonuses to all employees, including those who worked exclusively from home. That money should have gone to the businesses and individuals harmed by the lockdowns.

The county should have convened a citizens’ panel – similar to a civil jury – to independently investigate its handling of the pandemic. The panel could have been given a budget to hire an investigator.

As it stands, this report is flawed, and it’s obvious why—the county used a consultant to evaluate its own job performance. Given this error, it’s obvious that deficiencies are being covered up and successes are being trumpeted. The public has a right to objectivity. And a useful, unbiased report would prepare us if we ever face another pandemic again.

Editor Dave Price’s column appears in the Daily Post on Mondays.

To read the report, open this link and go to point 6. Click on “a. Appendix A – OEM COVID-19 AAR.”