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A little help?

On Tuesday evening when Dr. Ron Chapman, Yolo County Health Officer addressed the Davis City Council to provide an update for them on the Corona Virus situation in Yolo County, I went to the Yolo County Corona Virus Dashboard and looked up the number of CV tests that had been done to date in Yolo County. Here's the URL for the Dashboard:

https://www.yolocounty.org/health-human-services/adults/communicable-disease-investigation-and-control/novel-coronavirus-2019/dashboard-and-documents

It is a very informative dashboard! 

Back to the number tested in all of Yolo County:  That figure was 721 CV tests.

That means that 721/215,802 (2016) Yolo County residents had been tested.  That's less than 1%.  To be precise it is 1/3 of one percent.

Today I saw the figure of people tested in Yolo County has gone up to 885 people.  So, 885 out of 215,802 = 0.0041.  Or 40% of one percent of the population.  Still less than 1% of the Yolo County population has been tested.

Now I am NOT faulting the Health Department, they have been underfunded for years.  But we have presence from FOUR big health systems here in Yolo County:  Sutter, UC Davis Health System, Dignity, and Kaiser. Plus a small number of Community Health Centers.

Can't the City of Davis ask the Big Four to step up and help the Health Department with some significant level of testing?  Can't the City of Woodland City Council ask the same when Dr. Chapman presents to them next week?  

The Public Health Department can only do so much on its own (and I hope you paid your property taxes because that helps pay for County services!) so, can we have a little help from the big providers of care to assist with widespread CV testing throughout the county? 

And do it SOON so that the sooner we can get our arms around this problem the sooner we can respond properly and then eventually the sooner we can all get back to work/school/normal life?

Thank you for your consideration.

John Troidl 

(I am trained in both public health and in health services management).

 

 

 

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Comments

5 responses to “A little help?”

  1. Nancy Price

    Thanks, John. Would be good to know the number who might be positive. Today I was at the Food Co-op at 11:00 – 12:30 pm with my mask and gloves on and maybe 1/2 – 3/5th of shoppers had masks on, some just cloth or bandanas. And and some of these shoppers were both younger and older folks. knowing more about testing results might improve the percentage of the public in Davis taking more precaution.

    Reply
  2. John J. Troidl

    Nancy,
    According to the Dashboard, there have been 75 “Total Cases”. Assuming those are the ones that tested positive, that means of 885 tests, a total of 75 were positive for a rate of slightly more than 8%.
    So, that means for every 100 people who presumably had symptoms and were referred by a physician for testing, 8 of them turned out to have the corona virus and 92 turned out to have something else…. the flu, “virus of unknown origen”, allergies, a cold, something other than CV.
    So, I don’t know if that encourages people to wear a mask or not… but it sure encourages me to ask “Can we test for the flu and other viruses so we can understand what they do and they do not have?”
    Regards,
    John

    Reply
  3. Robin Wiener

    John – Do we know for a fact that all Yolo residents who get recommendations from their doctors to have tests are actually tested in Yolo County (rather than in Sac)? If Yolo residents were tested in Sac and were positive, would they show up as additional cases in Yolo or in Sac? I assume if they were hospitalized it would show up as a hospitalized case in whichever county the hospital is in, even if different from where the patient lives. Do you know if that is correct?

    Reply
  4. John Troidl

    Hi Robin. Those are good questions. I’d have to double check and see there is a “legend” that explains the specific definition of each data point or variable.
    John

    Reply
  5. John J. Troidl

    Good morning!
    I just heard that Meet the Press today is all about TESTINGTESTINGTESTING!
    Interviews with FDA, WHO and loads of others.
    Might be good to see to increase our testing literacy.
    Cheers,
    John

    Reply

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