Is there a communication breakdown or is it just me?
Maybe I live in a little bubble—surrounded by COVID-19 press conferences, press releases, case numbers, articles, businesses adjusting, and on and on—but it seems like there are people who haven’t received the message.
Like, at all.
To help get the word out to those who can’t seem to take a hint, emergency physicians at Cottage Health felt the need to pen a letter to the public. We didn’t have space in the Sun this week for it, but the warning came across loud and clear: Do your part, people. Listen to public health officials.
“This is not a political issue, not a liberal or conservative issue. This is a human issue. Regardless of your income or immigration status, every one of us is affected by this pandemic,” the letter stated.
I think we should listen to them. It’s not over-hyped by the media. Your Santa Barbara County public health officials are holding daily briefings about it. The county doesn’t give daily updates about anything, unless it’s an emergency—you know, like the mudslides in Montecito.
Yes, that was real emergency, too! And no, the liberal media didn’t invent the virus to make President Donald Trump look bad. He does that all on his own!
But even in those updates, there’s some weird stuff going on.
During the March 30 press briefing, a reporter asked Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg whether the county was going to add to its supply of 32 ventilators in the near future. Ansorg looked confused and asked the reporter where she got the number.
The number had come straight out of Public Health Department Director Dr. Van Do-Reynoso’s mouth. Ansorg, caught off guard, said he couldn’t say exactly how many the county actually had, but that he was sure the number was higher than that.
Maybe it’s too hard from my non-doctorate-earning little bird brain to understand, but what? That’s a number Ansorg and Do-Reynoso should absolutely, 100 percent be on the same page about. And it should also be accurate. So what gives, guys?
During the March 31 Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting, we learned that the county currently has 85 ventilators with a request into the state for at least 100 more. But those numbers came from a public health department update—a county agency that’s seems incompetent at the moment.
Also, we still don’t have an answer about how the county is planning to tackle the height of the epidemic, when cases surge and push area hospitals past their maxes. What’s the plan guys? And why isn’t the public informed about it?
On March 27, Do-Reynoso told reporters that county officials were having a meeting about surge-planning over the weekend. Still, the public had no information about what the plan was when we went to press on March 31.
Meanwhile, SLO County has given the public a detailed list of exactly what it’s doing to build a temporary care facility at Cal Poly, complete with a timeline for completion—April 8, if you were wondering.
What I’m wondering is where Santa Barbara County’s communication is breaking down.
The Canary is a communication expert. Seek advice at canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 2-9, 2020.