The California Department of Public Health announced Monday that religious services can resume under new guidelines, but with restrictions on how many people can attend and other precautions. And on Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom added hair salons and barber shops to the list of businesses permitted to begin reopening in counties that have received state approval.
NSPR's Marc Albert spoke Tuesday with Kerri Schuette, spokesperson for the Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency, about the reopening of churches, the continued importance of wearing masks and following social distancing guidelines, and more.
Here are highlights from their conversation. You can listen to the full interview at the top of the page.
Interview Highlights
On the state’s announcement that churches can reopen with limited attendance
We are hearing that folks are happy to be able to get back to their churches. It's looking a little bit different than it has the last time they were in church. But I think people are generally seeing it as one step forward.
On the continued importance of masks and face coverings as businesses reopen
Masks are still a really important piece of us being able to move forward in our recovery. The virus is still here. It hasn't gone anywhere. And we are strongly encouraging people to wear masks, in addition to the practices that they're already using, such as social distancing, hand washing, all of those sorts of things. That mask is an added layer of protection to keep that virus from spreading in our community. In the past two weeks, we've had three cases of people who were asymptomatic. So those people have been potentially spreading the virus in our community without knowing it because they were not sick.
On those recent asymptomatic cases in Shasta County
We have the testing at Shasta College — the state-sponsored testing through OptumServe for people who do not have symptoms. And we've been encouraging people to take advantage of that — particularly people who are out and about working in essential businesses and now working in other businesses, just to make sure that they are not carriers of the COVID-19. And, in fact, there were three who tested positive and had no symptoms at all. So if they were out and about and happened to cough or sneeze and someone were around them, they would probably think nothing of it, because they were not symptomatic. But in fact, they certainly could have been spreading it during that time.
On contact tracing
From our very first case, and since before COVID actually, the Public Health Department uses contact tracing as a regular tool in its toolbox and always has for decades. At least that's the practice here at Shasta County Public Health. And so as soon as we get a positive test result we begin contact tracing immediately. We interview the patient and determine who those close contacts might be and then we deliver quarantine orders to them. We have 18 people on quarantine right now, and we have four in isolation. Isolation is for people who have tested positive, so those 18 people on quarantine would have been people who had contact with one of those four people.
On the county’s approach to enforcement of rules as businesses reopen
We are hopeful that people in our community — business owners and patrons alike — take very seriously the fact that there are modifications that are required to be in place for businesses to reopen. That includes following the guidance and the checklists that have been provided by the state of California through the governor's office. We're encouraging business owners to share those completed checklists with their staff, so their staff are fully aware of what the modifications are and what they require.
We're also encouraging customers, like you and me, to familiarize themselves with some of the standard things that businesses are supposed to be doing so that when they go into a business, they can feel that they are safe and protected as much as possible. Like I said, the virus has not gone anywhere.
And as we start to open the different types of businesses, including churches and hair salons and places like that, that people really, really understand that it's incumbent upon all of us to protect ourselves and to protect each other. That is how we keep moving forward. If we end up with a bunch of outbreaks and a bunch of very sick people and our hospitals start to become overwhelmed, we have to move backwards. And nobody wants that. It's not good for the economy. It's not good for our health. There's nothing good about going backwards. So for those who are not taking it seriously, we strongly encourage you to really think about the impact that even one person can have on the situation we're in right now.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Click the “play” button to listen to the entire interview.
