I don’t have notes from today’s County conference call to share. But here are a few pieces of information (new to me, at least) that may be of use to others.
Call 211 for Information and to Report Covid-19 Related Issues
The County is asking people not to tie up the 911 emergency dispatch lines with either requests for Covid-19 information or to report issues involving people or businesses not following the emergency regulations. Please reserve 911 for emergencies.
San Carlos Quarantine Facility
Five people have tested negative for Covid-19 on sequential tests and been allowed to return home. While only a small number it’s nice to see evidence of people having tested positive and then fought off the infection without needing hospitalization.
Gardeners, Housekeepers, etc.
The current emergency regulations prohibit employing gardeners or housekeepers. This is being done to reduce the risk of viral transmission by reducing group interactions. In this case the groups are virtual in that they occur as a gardener or housekeeper interacts with multiple clients over a relatively short period of time or by virtue of multiple people traveling to and from different job sites in the same vehicle.
Contact the County if you have questions about this. Note that a similar prohibition likely applies to any non-urgent service the lack of which over a few week period doesn’t create a health risk to you.
Volunteer Survey
The County launched a SurveyMonkey site for people to use to volunteer. You can find it here.
Express Lane Tolling
All three express lane operators (whom I believe operate all the freeway express lanes in the six Bay Area counties) have agreed to cease charging tolls for using express lanes beginning Friday, March 20, 2020 at 5 AM. The suspension will stay in place for however long the shelter-in-place mandates last or until traffic levels warrant returning to the normal state of affairs.
2 thoughts on “Covid-19: 3/20/2020 Notes”
Restricting the gardeners needs to be analyzed more carefully. The Next Door Neighbor site has literally hundreds of comments from persons who have gardeners and indicate that the 6 foot rule is easy to abide by.
A simple solution would be to provide the gardener written instructions for the day and place the list, as I have been doing in a place he can easily access.
Rather than use the blower they can resort to the old fashion procedure of raking and pick up of leaves, trimmings etc.
Lastly they can use the hose and sort of give all plants and lawn a wash sprinkle wash and leave.
Hi Bernard,
You’re welcome to lobby the County for a change in the rule. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they were pretty resistant to it, if for no other reason than as I mentioned gardeners who work in groups often travel to and from job sites together.
– Mark