A 'Glimmer Of Hope' Is Here Amid Santa Clara County COVID Surge

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — Santa Clara County Public Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody offered a “glimmer of hope” Friday as the county continues to see high COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations.

The county’s sewer sheds are tracking a decrease in the amount of omicron variant being detected, a sign that infections are beginning to decline, Cody said at a news briefing.

The county’s seven-day rolling average of new cases was at over 4,200 Thursday, with Cody noting that “we are still in the throes of the highest infection rate to date that we have seen throughout these entire two years.”

Hospitalizations are also continuing to increase because the trends lag behind case rates.

“We’re far from out of the woods,” Cody said. “What I'm saying is maybe we’re starting to approach where we were two weeks ago. But at least we’re not continuing to rise up.”

The county laid out testing guidelines on Friday to help ease the current backlog in demand for testing. At-home antigen tests can be used to shorten isolation or quarantine periods for those who have tested positive or been exposed to someone with COVID-19, and should be recognized as valid, health officials said.

While PCR tests are more sensitive, health officials said there is no need to follow-up with a PCR test after a positive antigen test.

“Do not get tested again at a testing lab — it is unnecessary and uses resources that could be used to test another individual,” county officials said in a news release.

People who have tested positive in the last 90 days should not need to get tested again unless they are newly symptomatic or have been exposed, and they should use an at-home antigen test, according to health officials.

Those who receive primary care through large healthcare systems like Kaiser or Palo Alto Medical Foundation/Sutter Health should be able to get tested if they are symptomatic or have been exposed.

County Counsel James Williams criticized the healthcare systems on Friday, noting the disproportionate number of tests and vaccines that the county’s own healthcare system has had to provide.

Around 300,000 residents or 15 percent of the county’s population receive their primary care through the county’s healthcare system, but it has provided over 20 percent of tests. That’s a disproportionate number compared to Kaiser, which serves over 30 percent of the county but provided about 12 percent of tests, or PAMF/Sutter Health, which serves more than 16 percent of the population but has provided 2.4 percent of tests.

For vaccinations, the county has provided over 37 percent of doses. Kaiser has given less than 15 percent and PAMF/Sutter Health less than 4 percent.

“It is absolutely critical for this to be an all-community effort,” Williams said. “And one piece of that absolutely is the role of our large healthcare systems to provide vaccinations, to provide testing. Unfortunately — and this is very clear in the data — the county itself has had to provide disproportionate access for vaccination and testing.”

Williams encouraged anyone who has been turned away from receiving a test from their primary healthcare provider to report it to the county at sccCOVIDconcerns.org as a violation of a Sept. 2020 county health order that requires healthcare providers to give tests to anyone who is symptomatic or has been exposed.

“People should be able to get that access from their primary care provider,” Williams said. “That should be the first place that they can go. In our community, people are going first to the county health system. We’re glad that the county health system has been able to provide that service to the community. But it is not reasonable for the county health system to provide such a disproportionate share of the testing and vaccination. We need the other large systems to step up and do their part as well.”

Visit sccfreetest.org for more information on testing and sccfreevax.org for more on vaccinations.