Santa Clara County marks 2 years since its first detected COVID infection as pandemic continues

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Two years to the day, on Jan. 31, 2020, Santa Clara County’s battle against the COVID-19 pandemic officially began. Officials say that battle continues.

"We’re now in the midst of omicron," said Dr. Sarah Cody, the Santa Clara County health officer.

Monday morning Cody said 83% of all county residents are vaccinated. And over 90% of eligible persons have gotten the medication. As a result, the current case rate has dropped by about half.

"So this has given our community a tremendous level of protection and it has buffered many of the harms from COVID," said Dr. Cody.

She said in the coming months, the county will transition away from mass testing and vaccination. It will leave such actions to private health care providers.

County officials have previously complained government is bearing an unfair portion of the burden when it comes to testing.

Officials said the county serves 15% of the population, but conducts 20% of COVID tests. Kaiser serves about 30% of the patients, but does only 12% of the testing. And the Palo Alto Medical Foundation serves 16.5% of country residents but only does a little over 2% of testing. 

County Counsel James Williams said warning letters had been sent, after officials received complaints about a lack of adequate testing.

"…To really ensure that we’re building a long-term sustainable infrastructure where those in our community can get timely and appropriate access to COVID testing," Williams said.

Santa Clara County tweaked existing testing guidelines for private providers, for example, now  mandating tests must be performed within 24 hours of a receiving a request. And, that Antigen and PCR tests may now be used.

"It is very important to us that residents in our community have access to basic primary care that they deserve and need," said Williams.

Sutter Health said earlier in the month, "We have increased our overall testing capacity…" And Kaiser had said "We object to any suggestion that our front line health care workers are not doing their fair share…"

Tuesday sees the deadline for front line county healthcare and emergency workers to receive COVID vaccination. Health department officials said they’ve reached out to various organizations and believe they’re ‘on top of the situation.’ Discipline for those refusing to ‘vax-up’ is at discretion of each agency.