As Placer County Sees COVID-19 Surge, Leadership Won’t Issue Emergency Health Order

Placer County is in dire COVID-19 straits: Cases are at an all-time high and the seven-day positivity rate is nearly 13%.

But unlike counties in similar circumstances, Placer County has no local public health emergency in place — and has no plans to implement one. 

The county board of supervisors terminated its existing public health order in September, as the number of positive cases leveled off and hospital capacity improved. 

Bonnie Gore, Placer County supervisor and board chairperson, says the actions of residents matter more than an official emergency order.

“I will continue to encourage residents to take precautions like wearing a face covering, limiting mixing with those outside their household, and keeping social distance,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “A health emergency proclamation has not proven to significantly impact the adherence of our residents to these precautions.”

But a number of public health experts disagree, arguing that government restrictions on gatherings, business operations and travel are effective when combined with other measures. Experts also say residents base their actions on the official messaging and orders from elected leaders.

“An emergency order [is] a warning to people, telling them that this is crucial, this is very important,” said Diana Bontà, adjunct professor at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health and former director of the California Department of Health Services.

Placer County’s board of supervisors unanimously voted to terminate its local emergency health order on September 8, citing improved case numbers and harms caused by a delayed re-opening of the economy. 

At that time, it was in the state’s “substantial” tier for COVID-19 restrictions, though its case numbers had started to stabilize and the positivity rate was less than 5%.

The board of supervisors’ resolution claimed the county had prevented hospital system failure and “the curve has been flattened in Placer County.” It also expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of the order altogether.

“Health emergency declarations are obligated to be terminated at the earliest possible date that the conditions warrant and, based on the number of COVID-19 cases in our county, there is no longer a health emergency with regards to COVID-19 in Placer County,” said Gore in a county press release at the time, adding that residents need to continue practicing safety measures. 

Placer County’s public health officer announced her resignation shortly thereafter, citing the board’s vote. 

None of Placer County’s other four supervisors responded to CapRadio’s request for comment.

Fast forward three months: COVID-19 is surging in Placer County. 

It’s recording hundreds of positive cases every day and nearly 70% of ICU beds are occupied as of Monday, according to county data.

The decision of whether or not to reinstate the county’s emergency order appears to be based on leadership’s lack of faith in an order’s effectiveness  — not on the alarming data. 

“The authorities granted to the county under such [a] proclamation do not have any correlation to the spread or reduction of spread of COVID-19,” wrote Gore in an emailed statement. “Other counties with more stringent rules are also experiencing an increase in COVID-19 cases.”

Gore, who formerly worked as a community and government relations manager at Kaiser Permanente, added that the summer spike in cases occurred when the county had an emergency health order in place. The county is currently recording an average of 271 new cases per day  — roughly four  times the peak of the summer surge.

Bontà says public health orders are also about showing respect to those on the frontlines of the pandemic.

“People are making tremendous sacrifices in the medical arena,” she said. Governments should “try and ease their burden [by making] clear to the public that there are ways in which we can protect ourselves and decrease the number of cases.”

Placer County will remain under the state’s stay-at-home order through at least the end of the year, since the Greater Sacramento Region’s available ICU capacity dropped below 15%.