Update: About five hours after the meeting, San Benito County announced Dr. Martin Fensterheib’s resignation.
At its April 28 special meeting, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors discussed changes to the local shelter-in-place order and additional testing allocated to the county. Supervisor Peter Hernandez also questioned Public Health Officer Dr. Martin Fenstersheib’s role in the county’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and called for his dismissal.
With the current shelter order set to expire May 3 at 11:59 p.m., the county is considering extending it with fewer restrictions in order to allow businesses such as construction, faith-based services, funerals and weddings, real estate, automobile sales and landscaping to resume operating. Six Bay area counties—Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Mateo—said on April 27 that they will extend their shelter-in-place orders through May.
Fenstersheib said current data indicates the county has taken the right steps and it’s now time to set up plans on how to strategically re-open the county. Additionally, he said Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, which at this point doesn’t have a COVID-19 patient, has the capacity to treat any additional cases that may arise when new businesses are allowed to operate.
Health and Human Services Agency Director Tracey Belton said San Benito County is also assessing its shelter-in-place needs compared to the statewide order.
“There have been lots of questions around ‘do we need both?’ Which one would serve us better, and we are currently in discussions about that now as we speak,” Belton said.
San Benito County Public Health Services is open to input from residents about how best to relax the order while still adhering to the state’s regulations, Belton said. Input can be emailed to publichealthreferral@cosb.us.
The county will get a boost to its virus testing capabilities as soon as next week. Belton said the California Department of Public Health selected San Benito County to be allocated priority COVID-19 testing. The goal is to test between 90 and 130 individuals per day, and it’s estimated to take two days to get results.
According to the county’s coronavirus dashboard, 883 residents have been tested. Fenstersheib said the county currently has 50 confirmed cases since February, with the two most recent cases reported on April 28.
“This is such great news, that we could possibly do anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 tests over the next 60 days in San Benito County,” Fenstersheib said.
Belton said free testing could begin at the Veterans Memorial Building in Hollister as soon as May 4. Testing sites in San Juan Bautista and Aromas are also a possibility. Testing will continue to focus on populations that are at high-risk of being exposed to COVID-19 such as healthcare workers, first responders, nursing staff, individuals with chronic health conditions, residents over 60, farmworkers and individuals with mild symptoms.
While the priority is to test those at-risk groups, Fenstersheib said he hoped to have enough resources to also test people who don’t show symptoms, and to study those who are asymptomatic.
“I want to be able to use every single one of these tests that are being made available free to us by the state,” Fenstersheib said.
OptumServe is the firm responsible for marketing and cleaning the test site, but Belton noted that “there are still limited details and we’ve yet to receive a call from our OptumServe coordinator.”
In her presentation, Belton said the county recommended a roadmap to recovery advisory committee made up of representatives from the county, cities, law enforcement, education, health care, business and faith-based sectors. The recommendation stated the committee was not intended for elected officials, but supervisors felt they needed to be involved.
Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz appointed himself and Supervisor Anthony Botelho to the committee, despite the board’s recommendations to add Hernandez and Botelho.
Following the COVID-19 update from Fenstersheib and Belton, supervisors voiced their intentions of relaxing restrictions to the point allowed by the state.
Supervisor Mark Medina said comparing data between local counties, San Benito County had the largest rate of testing at 1,405 per 100,000 residents. He said Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties were at 1,319, 1,276 and 625 respectively. He added that the county’s positive test rate was 5.4%, lower than surrounding counties.
“Our positive cases have decreased dramatically in the last 14 days,” Medina said. He asked Fenstersheib to speak about the risks of adopting the state’s shelter order and for a time frame for moving in that direction.
Fenstersheib said San Benito County could begin to move forward today, but said the state order is too general and doesn’t provide guidelines. He said Gov. Gavin Newsom did this intentionally to allow local jurisdictions flexibility in implementing their own version of sheltering in place based on their circumstances.
“We have the same capability of doing what we can to open the community within guidelines, but it gives us some ability to specify how people can go about this,” Fenstersheib said, adding that some aspects of the construction industry were required to implement a safety plan in order to continue to operate.
In a 10-minute speech, a frustrated Hernandez said the board’s concerns with the initial shelter-in-place order were ignored, and that there were holes in the recent face covering order that could be used as an excuse in case of a spike in COVID-19 infections.
According to Hernandez, those holes include businesses being unable to police the order for customers who are exempt, such as those with medical conditions. He also said the face covering order encourages less social distancing. Hernandez said Fenstersheib’s “so-called solutions” raised more questions than the public health officer could answer.
“The last time that that type of damage caused by one individual was only possible in a different type of government, which is not our system, that we’re not supposed to resemble,” Hernandez said. “And that’s obviously a monarchy where basically too much power is given to an individual and ultimately unaccountable because you’re unelected.”
After saying that not enough emphasis was put on the virus’s 95% recovery rate and that a strong economy signified good public health, Hernandez said he supported the county terminating Fernstersheib’s contract.
Public response to Hernandez’ comments was mixed, with some supporting Fenstersheib and thanking him for his work, and others questioning his qualifications and saying civil rights had been violated with the shelter-in-place order.
Fenstersheib didn’t respond directly to Hernandez’s remarks, but said he appreciated the comments. Supervisors Medina, De La Cruz, and Botelho spoke in support of Fenstersheib and said he only provided information and recommendations based on available data.
“As Supervisor Medina stated, he is probably giving us information and answers and opinions that we ourselves, most of us are in business, I don’t want to hear right now. We know how our neighbors and our friends and our business community is hurting and we’re trying to work through that,” Botelho said. “I think if we start feeding on ourselves we’re getting in trouble.”
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