California and Fresno County officials game plan for new coronavirus ‘strike teams’
A week after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the formation of three “strike teams” to respond to the continuing spread of COVID-19 in California’s Central Valley, wide-ranging meetings Monday and Tuesday are the first step in developing an action plan for the region.
Leaders from Fresno County’s health, social services and emergency services agencies, as well as representatives of the local medical, agriculture and business communities are convening with officials from several state agencies to assess the situation and see what resources the state can bring to bear.
The state delegation is led by Susan Fanelli, chief deputy director of the California Department of Public Health, and includes about nine representatives from the state’s Office of Emergency Services, Department of Social Services and Workforce & Labor Development Agency.
David Pomaville, director of Fresno County’s Department of Public Health, said the full day of meetings on Monday, and another half day on Tuesday, are expected to result in an action plan to help Valley counties rein in the ongoing transmission of the virus in the region.
The meetings happening at the county’s Department of Behavioral Health in central Fresno are also aimed at relieving the burden the virus is imposing on hospitals and other medical providers.
In just a few days between Tuesday and Sunday last week, for example, Fresno County has reported more than 2,420 new confirmed coronavirus infections and 18 deaths.
Over the past two weeks, an average of nearly 300 confirmed COVID-19 patients have been treated as inpatients in Fresno County hospitals, up from an average of fewer than 100 at the beginning of July.
The strike teams, formally dubbed “unified response teams” by Newsom, are similar to the deployment this spring of groups from state agencies to Imperial County. That Southern California county saw a large surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths that overwhelmed local resources.
Fanelli said the latest efforts are targeting the entire San Joaquin Valley from San Joaquin County in the north through Kern County in the south.
Pomaville said Monday that many of the issues on the agenda have also been the subject of weekly regional phone conferences between counties and state health officials.
“This is an opportunity for them to come down and really listen and try to find gaps where we can work on things,” he said.
“I think we’ll have action items (after Tuesday’s session) that can happen,” he added. “For example, we talked about making sure we’re talking with hospitals, with skilled nursing facilities, with emergency medical services, and make sure they’re all connected in terms of continuing care.”
Each sector has had its hands full with the pandemic, Pomaville said, “but we’re at a point that because they’re so interrelated, we’ll do more work together.”
Local officials encouraged by response
Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, said last week that he was looking forward to the extra help being offered by the state, particularly after their experience in Imperial County.
“They were able to really stabilize the multiple outbreaks that were going on there,” Vohra said Friday. “They learned a lot of lessons and now they’re deploying these similarly structured teams to the Central Valley.”
“I was heartened to learn that they are going to bring a whole-government approach,” Vohra added. “They recognize that this is not just the role of public health, that this is going to require multiple public agencies and civic leaders to help us control the spread that we’re currently experiencing.”
Issues up for discussion include:
1. The current status of hospitals, skilled nursing centers and other medical providers in Fresno County.
2. The county’s ability to keep up with disease investigation and contact tracing.
3. The county’s capacity for testing and data management.
4. Adherence by the public to health guidelines issued by state and county officials.
5. Compliance by the county’s business, industrial and agricultural sectors with current COVID-19 guidelines.
6. Public education.
Vohra said he was looking forward to working with a range of state agencies “who have expertise in helping managing some of these issues that we’re identifying.”
Monica Vargas, an information officer with the state Office of Emergency Services, indicated that the three strike teams will be holding meetings in counties throughout the region to get “a better picture of the specific needs of each county, how the state can best support, and team members supporting the mission.”
The initial expectation, Vargas added, is a focus on health and medical systems; distribution of personal protective equipment and supplies like face masks, gloves and other gear; communication and public education; social services and enforcement.
In addition to the state public health and social services departments, other agencies supporting the effort will include the state Department of Food and Agriculture; the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency; and the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
All of the participants, Vohra said, “have the same goal, which is to help flatten the curve back down and see what interventions need to be done” to get Fresno County and neighboring counties off the state’s monitoring list of relative hot spots for the virus within the state.
“I’m excited about this development; I think it needed to happen and I’m glad it’s happening,” he said. “They’re already veterans at troubleshooting coronavirus outbreaks in other California counties. … This is exactly the shot in the arm that we need at this time.”
This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 3:14 PM.
