County Health Official optimistic of school reopening, “we never said they should close, they closed on their own”

DANVILLE – Last week, the Danville Town Council hosted Contra Costa County Deputy Health Officer Dr. Ori Tzvieli to answer questions related to the Health Officer Order.

Dr. Tzvieli updated the council on his department’s progress on the five indicators chosen to guide the reopening process. He said the county is still achieving two of the indicators, hospitalizations, and hospital capacity. Although the other three indicators, testing, PPE supply and contact tracing have not been accomplished, Dr. Tzvieli showed confidence in the county’s progress. “I’m pretty sure we’ll get there on the testing, PPE and even on the contact tracing,” he said.

Councilmember Robert Storer asked Dr. Tzvieli what else would need to happen (other than achieving the five indicators) to loosen restrictions on businesses. Dr. Tzvieli indicated that despite progress on the indicators, the county would continue to wait two weeks between opening steps. “In-house, I’d like to have more contact tracing, but that’s not actually slowing anything down,” Dr. Tzvieli said. “What’s actually happening is this sort of philosophic decision… every time you loosen, wait a little bit to make sure you don’t see a surge.”

Councilmember Renee Morgan asked Dr. Tzvieli if schools would be able to open in the fall. She noted that many students missed out on sporting events and graduation due to school closures this spring. Dr. Tzvieli voiced optimism for schools’ reopening, “I think schools are going to reopen in the fall, I would like for them to reopen.” He continued, “just to clarify, we never said they should close, they closed on their own… I think in large part due to pressures from teachers unions who were feeling vulnerable.”

Councilmember Storer also addressed the economic impacts that the health order has had on Danville’s once lively small business community. He explained there are mom-and-pop business owners frustrated they cannot open but big box stores like Walmart or Costco bring in thousands of customers a day. “There’s got to be some equity in all this and I’m just not seeing it,” Councilmember Storer said. “What do we tell our downtown businesses?… Many of them won’t even be in business in the next 30 days… you know, we’ve got to open this thing up.”

Dr. Tzvieli responded by empathizing with those struggling as a result of the order but drew comparisons between California and New York. “On March 13th, we had the same number of cases as New York… I think we acted four days before they did… we are the second densest area in the country, so it’s not that different” Dr. Tzvieli said.

Vice Mayor Lisa Blackwell cautioned that opening too early would cause negative impacts, “that is my biggest fear – that we would open so quickly, everyone would get out and we would see this surge… I think psychologically and economically that would be more painful,” Vice Mayor Blackwell said.