The Lassen County COVID-19 Incident Command is detailing the massive preparations being undertaken by the county in advance of any impact our community may experience due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
At the moment, according to the Office of Emergency Services there are no positive cases of COVID-19 in Lassen County with a total of 37 people being tested. 30 of those tests have come back negative and 7 are still pending.
An Emergency Operation Center was established to coordinate the local response and the Incident Command created an Incident Action Plan which can be downloaded by clicking here. This plan establishes the chain of command and information flow along with responsibilities of individual people and agencies.
In the report Incident Commanders Barbara Longo and Sheriff Dean Growdon explain that over the past couple weeks the team at Banner Lassen Medical Center has been preparing for the potential impact that COVID-19 pandemic may have on the health system within Lassen County.
“Their priority is the safety of our healthcare workers, patients and the community. At this time, they have not experienced an increase in patient census and volumes due to COVID-19 pandemic.”
According to Longo and Growdon many local residents have expressed concerns about our county’s response to meet the recommendations for social distancing.
Modoc County Sheriff William Dowdy released an infographic entitled, Fun Things that the Social Distancing Scoreboard doesn’t not take into account for Rural Counties. In it the Modoc Sheriff explains some of the reasons that our rural counties in northern California are scoring so poorly on Unacast’s Social Distancing Scoreboard.
Much of the data used in Unacast’s reporting is travel data showing how far and how often people are driving in the county as opposed to their driving habits prior to the stay-at-home order.
“In some rural counties, essential employees account for 75% of the workforce, so very little would change in their day to day patterns,” Dowdy points out in the infographic.
According to the OES, Emergency Services, Local Government and State and Federal Institutions make up the vast majority of employment in Lassen County. Most of these workers have been reclassified to different positions within the emergency structure while others continuing to work through these extraordinary circumstances.
As the infographic states, “Many people carry a work phone and a personal phone which will look like they are socializing but in fact are not.”
Incident Command and local health care providers are working around the clock to increase their capacity and ability to respond to the potential impact that COVID-19 may have on the health care system and the community.
“We appreciate your efforts in following the social distancing recommendations and the stay at home order,” concluded the IC’s statement.
