Speaker 1: of items. So we'll go through all of those items. So let's go ahead and get our COVID 19 study session started. And if we can please get that set up, I'm going to start off the presentation, but I'm going to give the staff just a minute to get set up. Is the staff presentation ready to go? Yes, we're ready. Do we want to read the item? Madam Clerk.
Speaker 0: Recommendation to conduct a study session to receive and file an update on COVID 19 data and recent health order.
Speaker 1: Thank you. We're going to go ahead and go into our study session. And soon after the study session, we will go into we do have three items that are related to takeover. And so we will take those items. Actually, I think it's four items. So we'll take those four items right after the study session as well. But I want to before I turn this over to staff, just want to make some general opening comments. I want to just begin by I think it's important for us to recognize that COVID 19 in this moment has caused the single largest loss of life of any event in the history of our city. And if you look at the modern era and the tragedies around the earthquake in the 1930s or the largest spike of crime that we had in the early 1990s on any year. We've never had the amount of deaths that we have had as it relates to this pandemic and health crisis. And not only has COVID 19. Been the largest contributor to a loss of life that has damaged our families and continues to cause havoc across the city. It is still remains the single largest threat to additional life within our community. And I hope that as we have discussions, that we're able to center. The people that we've lost, the victims, the families and the folks that across our city that are hurting and that need additional support. This pandemic is not getting better. It is getting worse across the United States. And that is also the case here in Long Beach and the state of California. Every day in this country, we are seeing 911 level events when it relates to deaths. 911 is repeating itself. Every single day in this country due to this pandemic. That is horrifying and it should be alarming to all of us, especially when cases continue to skyrocket. And when the numbers are going in the wrong direction. Now locally. Today is also a difficult day for Long Beach. We have a distinction today of having broken almost every record. As it relates to COVID 19. And our case rate and our positivity rate, we saw the largest number of cases since we've been collecting the case number. Our positivity rate is the highest it's been. People in our Long Beach hospitals that have COVID 19 are we believe I believe we're at our highest number. We've we've had our Long Beach area hospitalization number of COVID 19 is also the highest it's ever been. So we are facing a serious crisis that demands serious response centered around public health. While this real damage to our city is happening, there has been an immense amount. Of pain and damage to workers and to our business community. I think all of us got on this council because we wanted to grow the economy and support workers. And instead, in these last few months, we've been dealing with closures. Folks have lost their investments. Workers are unemployed. Small businesses and like restaurants and personal care services have had to close. And many folks across the city are wondering if they'll be able even to survive, if their business will survive, and if will have enough to even take care of their family. This was a tragic and terrible place that we are in as a community. Certainly no health officer wakes up in the morning and wants to close down businesses or wants to limit gatherings among people. Our businesses, our economy, our workers, those make our communities strong. And I know that we're all supportive of them. The same time, we are managing and partnering with our partners in L.A. County and within the state and the governor to try to have the best response possible within our community. I want to thank. Immensely. Our team at the Long Beach Health Department, first and foremost, who has put a majority of this presentation together for their heroic work. I also want to thank Mr. Modica and his team. As you'll see, they are doing a fantastic job at guiding the city through a very difficult time. And I look forward to hearing, of course, from our experts and from the community who is hurting. This is we I think we understand that people are upset and angry. I think we were in those positions. We would also be upset and angry. And so with that, I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Modica. We're going to go through our presentation and in one and a presentation that certainly is going to requires a seriousness of of discussion and debate as well. And so with that, Mr. Modica.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for that very sobering and very real summary of where we find ourselves. This is an incredible time in our city. It is incredibly painful to see the amount of disease that is happening throughout the entire region and the entire state and all of the impacts that it has on residents and businesses and everybody. I don't think any of us are immune from the toll that it's taken either psychologically or a loss of a family member or just concern about the ability for all of us to get through this. I do believe we will get through this. I think we've got a very talented team who is doing everything in their power to try to make the best decisions they can with the information available to save lives and also to be very mindful of economic recovery. You're going to hear today mostly from our health director, Kelly Collopy, and our medical doctor, Dr. Anissa Davis. They live and breathe every single day. This crisis, the amount of dedication that they put into this and thought with their entire team is admirable. And they really are the ones that are, you know, guiding us and making those really tough decisions. I want everyone on the phone to know and hear this is a unique situation. Normally in these types of situations, you know, you come to a council meeting and you ask your council members and they vote or the mayor signs an ordinance and and implements, you know, that way. That's not this. Our council, mayor and council do not make these decisions. These are really based in science and based by the health department and the health director. And so we we embrace this opportunity to come and really talk about the data and walk you through everything that's been happening and how we make those decisions and what are the facts that are available to us and not available to us. So the whole team is here and available to answer questions. And with that, I will turn it over to Kelly Collopy to get us started.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mayor. And to Tom. Good evening. Council members, thank you for this opportunity to provide an update on the status of our COVID 19, of COVID 19 and Long Beach and our response. This has been a very, very difficult time for many people. The probably the most difficult time in the memory, you know, in the memory in Long Beach for for many who are living here. And I want to thank you all just from the very beginning, for the support that we have received from you and from our community. I know that that people are struggling and people are you know, there's a lot of anger and frustration. And I and I understand it. And we're doing everything we can to bring this COVID pandemic to an end so that we can get back to the space where we can all be thriving again. I wanted to step back a little bit in time. So this whole thing started on March 4th in the city of Long Beach, where we declared the first our first local health health emergency and city emergency. And I remember, you know, we had our first three positive cases, but they were from travel. And so we were like, okay, as long as it's from travel, we're going to be okay. And then the next day we ratified our emergency declarations. And then on the 14th of March, we had our first case of community spread. And I remember sitting with our surveillance team just knowing that it's here. And, you know, we were going to do our very best to slow it and keep it, keep it, keep it down there, our contact tracing and all of our other opportunities. But the virus had its own mind. And so if you fast forward to today, we have over 18,000 cases and we continue to you know, we continue to work to mitigate the effects and to start to focus on our recovery and to plan for our recovery. This is not this is certainly not been a health department process alone. We've had over 100 city employees that were reassigned to the EOC. So they've sort of been that space that has managed all the different tasks. And those employees came from over 16 departments and 40 job classifications. We had people doing logistics, data finance, homelessness, testing, isolation and quarantine, PPE, collection and distribution, and the list goes on. It's been a huge effort across the city. An example of the different systems that we've established. So we've opened five drive thru test sites and a mobile testing program. We opened a rapid assessment clinic, a local distribution center for PPE, Storage and distribution. We established a data team. All those data things that you see every day on our on our website come from our our data team and the data dashboards that we utilize for decision making. Retrained and expanded investigation and contact tracing team. We've operated two congregate homeless sites, a Project Roomkey Motel and an isolation and quarantine site. We've implemented the Venue Task Force for Education Enforcement of local businesses, implemented the Joint Information Center, which is our coordinated communications response. And we've implemented the 570 info line, among other information lines, to be able to answer questions and support people when they need help. So I want to just provide a little bit of the sort of, you know, what some of these systems have been able to do so of the testing sites that we've been able to implement and some are in partnership with the state. So our Jordan Plus site is a state site. We are now partnering with the port as a site. We have our mobile testing site. St Mary's for a while had a state site. So there's a number of different sites here. But through those all of those drive through is we had we have done over 200,000. We have collected over 200,000 samples. And then if you add the folks that have gotten tested through their through their doctor's office or hospital, over 366,000 almost 367,000 tests have been collected and processed and reported back to people across the city of Long Beach. We talk about our rapid assessment clinic. This was a it's a walk up clinic that uses part of our mobile hospital. We have three tents as part of our mobile hospital, and that is one or one of them. So we we have that it's been placed at the PCC site, the Pacific Coast campus, site of Long Beach Community College, and then sometime, you know, much earlier in the pandemic and they've had a lot they're very popular and it allows for people to walk up to be able to access services without an appointment to receive an assessment. Since its inception, we've had approximately 3600 different patients assessed and they're in an all time high these days. I think that they saw over 300 people yesterday. For our local distribution site. We've had, you know, we've distributed over a million items going through it. And right now we have about 1,000,005 items currently in inventory. We're consistently distributing them through just, you know, our utilization possibly for different services. But we sometimes also have just like where we do large scale distribution. So it was through this distribution center, we were able to provide many nonprofits and businesses with the PPE. They needed to remain open to meet the needs of, you know, the requirements of our health orders and to be safe within this coban COVID pandemic. The Venue Task Force has gone out and visited and over 15,000 inspections. At least half of those are proactive. So going out and sharing, you know, sort of checking things out and then providing education and really supporting people to ensure that they can operate safely within the pandemic. They have issued 87 administrative citations to, you know, for folks who after education needed as an additional additional support to to comply with the orders. We've also been running the a number of different phone lines. So we have five, seven o4 bibs, which is specifically for our businesses. We have 1570 news, which is specific to media, and then we have our 570 info line, which is the general call in line. And through that call and line, you can also access our basic needs line. So you can see that we have had nearly 28,000 calls into our basic info line and a total of nearly 43,000 calls into all the lines, including our email going to the GIC. Well, this has been going on and we really wanted to make sure that we were providing community support throughout. So we were able to we have been able to partner in partnership with many different organizations throughout the city of Long Beach to distribute more than £550,000 of food, that is, to nearly 9000 households through drive thru and lock up events. We delivered over 98,000 meals through great plates to a 510 older adult participants in the program for early childhood centers and people with infants and toddlers redistributed more than 719,000 diapers and 10,000 packages of wipes, as well as which serves over 21,000 infants and toddlers. We've also distributed 168,000 other types of items, including hand sanitizer, masks, formula and gloves. And then through all that, we have implemented the basic needs line. It's also originally it was called the resource line. We moved it to the basic needs line and, and it started with older adults, but then has expanded. We've received more than 1100 calls to this to this line and provide a connection to food rides, to different medical appointments, PPE and other non-food items, medication, financial assistance and mental health supports. So I want to share a little bit about the data. So, you know, there's a lot of data that we look like I look at and people, you know, want to know like how are we making our decisions and what are we seeing? So this is one that we start with and this is this is last night. And, you know, it changed later today. Before that, we had a chance to update it in the system. So what you see here is 18,370 cases yesterday. Well, today that's 19,186, an increase of 816 reported overnight. You see 79 cases hospitalized yesterday. We had 98 total today, which is 19 new people admitted to the hospital and since yesterday. And then you'll see that we the number of deaths increased by four. So we have 287, um, yeah. Sorry, five 287 deaths.
Speaker 1: So let me just stop you 1/2. I think this is really important. This is probably the number one question I get. So I want to just clarify it on the data dashboard. When you just explained you didn't say COVID patients, we want to be clear, the currently hospitalized, that number, our Long Beach residents that are hospitalized with COVID. That is correct. That is not necessarily how many people are in the hospital. It's also not reflective of the number of people that are in our hospitals, because some of those people could be in a hospital in San Diego or in a hospital in L.A. County, though that number only is reflective. Of people that are Long Beach residents that are currently hospitalized regardless of the hospital that they're in and not inclusive of anyone else is hospitalized for whatever the reason.
Speaker 6: That is correct in our new data dashboard actually indicates both the number of currently hospitalized from Long Beach as well as the number currently hospitalized in in our local area hospital. So we have both of those numbers now in the data dashboard for people to see. Thank you. Yes. So what you also see here is if you look at your at the far left, you'll see where the cases are, the case rates per 100,000. So within the city of Long Beach, central and north Long Beach are most impacted per 100,000 in cases followed closely by West Long Beach. And then these side of Long Beach is has does not currently have the same level of impact per 100,000. That's often related because the areas in north and central Long Beach tend to be more dense. We have more people living in apartments and other in other spaces. So I think that, you know, we are seeing the different, the, um, where people are congregating and also are not congregating sorry. Where people are living is very much related to, to income, related to access to health care, related to overcrowded housing and the more dense areas of the city. And that plays out very clearly on our map. And if you look at the male and female distribution there, they're 52% of our current cases are female and 46% are male. And I'm going to get to the age group on the next slide, so I won't cover that here. But what you can see when you're looking at the trend line, so the first one is cases and you're going to see that we're tracking pretty closely to Los Angeles County, four cases per 100,000. When you look at the when you look at the hospitalizations, we continue to be below L.A. County in terms of our hospitalizations and then in terms of our deaths. We also continue to be below L.A. County, but our cases are tracking at approximately the same number. So, you know, there are a lot of folks are saying, well, you know, we've been through a surge before. So why does that make this different? Well, you need to look at this at the slope. So in the surge in the in the one month surge that we had in the summer, it was an increase in cases by 183%. And that what we look at is the seven day average. So we don't pick like one day that's really low and the next day that's really high. We really we smooth out that average daily rate over seven days. So you'll see that our summer surge had an increase of 183% in our cases since November 5th through December 30th, the one month we had an increase of 556% in our overall cases. So that went from 39 cases on November 5th to 285 cases average as of December 5th. When you start to look at who you know, where. Where are we seeing our infections? Well, the the age range of people, the median age for those are being affected by COVID has has been declining. So we started out, you know, in March and April and 48, 46 or mid-forties, and then in June that that number has really dropped. And right now we're at we're at 34. So we are seeing that the that much younger people are being infected with the virus. When you look at the the chart on the right, what you see is that red line is ages 25 to 49. And in both the June-July surge and this current surge, it is among those folks who are we're seeing the greatest impact of our cases. So the greatest increases. And so, you know, we really want to be able to engage even more closely with these populations. And it just let you know that it becomes very clear about the absolute importance for people to adhere to all the protocols, because when they're out and about, they're also often bringing it back to your parents or coworkers or, you know, and friends who may have underlying health conditions, who are older, who are more susceptible. And that increases the impact on the whole of the rest of the system. This chart you have seen before, and it's our amazing ethnicity data. And basically, you know, what you can see is that in terms of cases that, first of all, 33% of all cases, they do not report race and ethnicity. So the numbers here are not fully reported out. But what you can see is that the percentages of cases for a population, you see a much higher number among our next population and less across our other, you know, other race, ethnicity, categories. I think hospitalizations, you see increases. And then, you know, among our deaths, we still see an overrepresentation in our black population. We've seen an overrepresentation of our white population as well as they tend to be those who are in the long term care facilities. And that is where still over half of deaths for the city of Long Beach are occurring. But these data hide. They don't tell the full story. And so I want to share this with you. So when we really break out and look at the cumulative seven day case rate per 100,000, the top line is our is our Latin ex population. And you will see that they have, you know, they are much higher per 100,000 in their cases, in case rate followed closely by our African-American population, and that they are experiencing the surge at a much higher rate than among our white population going forward. And then when you put the chart next to that is really there's the age adjusted mortality rate. So this means that if you held for age, so if you didn't include everybody being, you know, over the age of 80 or something, but you really held for age that the that we are seeing 100, 123 per 100,000 compared to 89 for our black population when you're looking at our overall mortality rate when adjusted for age. So there are much greater impacts in those communities than we're seeing in the other. We've, you know, we've been working very hard to get funding through the CARES Act funding and others out to our nonprofit organizations and other partners to really be able to continue to educate, provide the PPE, provide the cleaning solutions, to be able to do case management and support people to to access the services that they need so that we can start to even more really sort of engage and continue to work to bring these numbers down. The other numbers that we look at, our case rate and our testing positivity rate. You heard the mayor. They're both higher than they've ever been. You can see the chart. So in the we had at some point this summer, we had a case rate of 6.9 and that was the lowest that we've ever seen. And now we're at 46.5. And then we had a positivity rate as low as 2.9, and we used to actually be in the orange when it came to our positivity rate, it was just so low and anger. But we're now at 9.3, which puts all of our numbers far into the purple in terms of tiers going forward . Sometimes people want to know, like, what does it look like compared to Orange County and L.A. County? Well, L.A. County has been, you know, higher than we have been, you know, since earlier in the month. But you can see at the end that we are now at the point where we are surpassing L.A. County's case rate per 100,000. Orange County's is a bit lower, but it is also it is also increasing. And I think the other key thing that we'd like to share is that, you know, through COVID, we've experienced far more deaths than any other year. So when you look at you know, you look at all of these different cases, this is you know, it's it's the highest of any deaths per one, you know, per one virus or one medical condition within the amount of time that we've had. But we've also had what we call sort of these additional deaths, these extra deaths. And we're seeing a five year. Sort of a five year average that far. You know, we're sorry this year we're exceeding the five year average by a substantial amount, one because of COVID, but also because we're seeing the crowded we're seeing the crowded emergency departments and hospitals and maybe undiagnosed COVID and other things, so that our test, so that are the number of deaths is far higher than we have seen in any of the past five years for things that are COVID or generally COVID related that don't show up in our numbers. And I want, you know, so we are paying a lot of attention to all the different supports. And it's another reason why I was focusing so much on our hospitals because we know early on it was has been a very big concern for people who are afraid to go to the hospital because because of COVID and the level of COVID in the hospitals. Also, I wanted to share with you our long term care facilities. You know, at the very beginning, we saw like the focus was long term care facilities in terms of where we saw particularly our deaths and our hospitalizations. And you can see now that there are small you know, they're only 8% of our overall caseload. They're 30% of our hospitalizations. Now, toward the beginning of the pandemic, they were over 50%. And so that number has really shifted. There's still continue to be a higher percentage of our deaths than than in our community. But that community number is increasing over time. So we are really you know, we're paying attention to that. We were down to where we had only one long term care facility with an outbreak. And that number has increased. I think we're we're at eight now. So we're doing everything we can to make sure that does not expand. And we did have a total of 81 long term care facilities, congregate, boarding, you know, places, mental health facilities and others with cases and outbreaks in this past year. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Anissa Davis, your health officer, and she's going to be talking about the hospitalization data as well as our orders going forward. Dr. Davis.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Kelly. Good evening, mayor and council members.
Speaker 4: So we track multiple factors to monitor the status of our hospitals.
Speaker 2: And those factors include the number of Long Beach residents with COVID, the total number of patients in Long Beach area hospitals, the total bed capacity for staffed beds, the percent of ICU beds that are full, the percent of ventilators that are in use.
Speaker 4: And regional capacities. So we'll go through some of that. So this.
Speaker 2: Slide shows hospitalization trends for patients with COVID 19 from April 2020.
Speaker 4: To November 2020. Now, the blue line.
Speaker 2: Shows the number of Long Beach residents who were hospitalized on a given day and any.
Speaker 4: Hospital. And like.
Speaker 2: The mayor mentioned before, this includes Long Beach residents.
Speaker 4: Who were hospitalized outside of Long Beach to be at a Kaiser hospital, for instance, or in other hospitals in Los Angeles or Orange County. The yellow line depicts how many people in general not tied.
Speaker 2: To Long Beach necessarily that were hospitalized for COVID 19 in any of our area.
Speaker 4: Hospitals, which include Long Beach hospitals, as well as those nearby Long.
Speaker 1: Beach.
Speaker 2: As we've discussed before, we reached a peak in our first surge of 92 Long.
Speaker 4: Beach residents being hospitalized and 161 people being hospitalized for COVID in.
Speaker 2: Area hospitals in mid-July. We've already surpassed.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 2: First surge peak.
Speaker 4: In our.
Speaker 2: Current surge, with a report today of 98 Long Beach residents who are.
Speaker 4: Currently hospitalized.
Speaker 2: And 179 in Long Beach area.
Speaker 1: Hospitals.
Speaker 2: Hospitalizations tend to be a lagging indicator, and they begin to climb approximately two weeks after we start to see cases rise and we usually start to see deaths rise two weeks after that. This chart shows adult bed capacity at local area hospitals.
Speaker 4: The first.
Speaker 2: Column shows the total staffed.
Speaker 4: Bed. The second shows adult ICU bed. The third shows non ICU beds. And the fourth shows.
Speaker 2: The number of ventilators that a particular hospital.
Speaker 4: Has. We'll go into a little bit more detail with that. So this.
Speaker 2: Shot, this slide shows the utilization of adult ICU.
Speaker 4: And non ICU beds and ventilators in local area hospitals. Right now in.
Speaker 2: Local area hospitals, there is 182 ICU beds.
Speaker 4: Being utilized. Which is 74% of all available ICU beds and.
Speaker 2: 1211 of nine.
Speaker 4: ICU.
Speaker 2: Beds, or 62% being utilized, and 225 or.
Speaker 4: 54% of ventilators are being used.
Speaker 2: Currently, the utilization over time is.
Speaker 4: Depicted with the lines below. So the dark blue dotted line shows the percent ICU bed in use. The percent ICU beds was.
Speaker 2: The highest that it got and our summer surge was.
Speaker 4: 91% with you can see that little blip there in the dark blue line at the far left of the graph.
Speaker 2: And then it stayed pretty consistently somewhere in the 60 percentages range, which you can.
Speaker 4: Start to see that it's rising.
Speaker 2: In December.
Speaker 4: To as high as 82%. The bright blue line represents percent of non ICU beds in use and the solid black line depicts the total number, the total percentage of beds. And then the yellow line is the ventilators that are in use. The IQ. One of the reasons why we monitor ICU bed utilization.
Speaker 2: And capacity so closely is because there's fewer.
Speaker 4: Of them. And these beds require ICU beds require.
Speaker 2: More specialized staff to staff them. And if ICU beds become limited, it can have a chain.
Speaker 4: Reaction and affect the entire.
Speaker 2: Hospital.
Speaker 4: System. So patients that would go to the ICU now have to stay.
Speaker 2: In the emergency department until.
Speaker 4: A bed opens up. And then this causes ambulances to not be able to.
Speaker 2: Transfer their patients.
Speaker 4: From the ambulance to the emergency department. And so they have to wait for an emergency department bed to open, which can then increase response times for nine on one call. Lack of ICU beds can impact the care for non-covid conditions as well, such as heart attacks and trauma.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 4: From car accidents.
Speaker 2: What? So to translate some of what we've talked about into some percentage increases in the numbers and things.
Speaker 4: That we're monitoring since November 1st.
Speaker 2: We've seen a 456% increase in the average daily cases. We've seen a 517% increase in local.
Speaker 4: Area hospitalizations for COVID 19.
Speaker 2: We've seen 196% increase in Long Beach residents hospitalized. We've seen a 338% increase in case rate per 100,000. 133% increase in positivity rate. And 80% of area hospital ICU capacity filled, leaving us with a 20% capacity and an 89%.
Speaker 4: Of regional ICU. So the Southern California region.
Speaker 2: ICU capacity filled, leaving us with a 10% capacity.
Speaker 4: So these are all very concerning numbers.
Speaker 2: We're also seeing record numbers of people testing since November. So we've increased our capacity to test and currently we have a capacity.
Speaker 4: With appointments to perform.
Speaker 2: 2264 tests each.
Speaker 4: Day.
Speaker 2: However, we also take walk ups.
Speaker 4: So people who come up without appointments and that increases.
Speaker 2: Our testing to over.
Speaker 4: 3000 people, usually on weekdays recently.
Speaker 2: And and we're performing.
Speaker 4: 1400 tests on Saturdays and Sundays. And on the bottom right part of the slide.
Speaker 2: You can see that.
Speaker 4: Starting in November, testing will start to rise very rapidly.
Speaker 2: So to go over.
Speaker 4: Some of the causes of spread.
Speaker 2: Really the main way that COVID 19 spreads is by people being close together. It spreads very easily to those who are physically near you.
Speaker 4: Through the air. And so.
Speaker 2: Everything all of the decisions and the precautions and.
Speaker 4: Guidances that we put in place.
Speaker 2: Are really to minimize.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 2: Interaction, to try to mitigate.
Speaker 4: That issue right there. So those things include physical distancing.
Speaker 2: Wearing a face covering, not gathering. Staying home while.
Speaker 4: Sick.
Speaker 2: Not being indoors. Making sure that your ventilation.
Speaker 4: Is working well.
Speaker 2: And then all of.
Speaker 4: The health orders that we put into place.
Speaker 2: And over 50% of exposures happen in pre-symptomatic.
Speaker 4: And asymptomatic individuals. So that is another difficulty.
Speaker 2: When we are trying to stop COVID 19 is that it's not just having symptoms.
Speaker 4: That alerts you, that you could be contagious and able to spread it to somebody else because up to 50% of people are either not symptomatic at the time that they're contagious or they don't ever develop symptoms at all.
Speaker 2: To review some specific concerns regarding restaurants. Cases were rising rapidly in Los Angeles County and Long Beach. And so we sought to minimize interactions between people who weren't wearing a mask. Restaurants were one of the only business sectors where taking off your.
Speaker 4: Mask is necessary and a part of the actual.
Speaker 2: Interaction it's considered. And because of this, it's considered a higher.
Speaker 4: Risk than other sectors. CDC found that.
Speaker 2: In a.
Speaker 4: Study that those testing positive were twice as likely as those testing negative to have eaten onsite at a restaurant, coffee shop or a bar.
Speaker 2: And they did not see that level of impact in other business sectors. Locally among our restaurants.
Speaker 4: We've received.
Speaker 2: 23% of restaurants have received.
Speaker 4: COVID related complaints, including fast food and pickup only restaurants.
Speaker 2: And 70% of restaurants with.
Speaker 4: Outdoor permitted parklets received complaints.
Speaker 2: And 48% have more than one complaint. And while Long Beach's numbers were substantially similar to those of Los Angeles County, the daily case rate being near 40 cases per 100,000. Pasadena's case rate was significantly lower.
Speaker 4: At that time at 23 per 100,000. So they.
Speaker 2: Did not close their.
Speaker 4: Outdoor in-person dining until the regional stay at home order went into effect. Their case rate now in Pasadena at. Is more closely aligned with our that 46 or 100,000.
Speaker 2: And some of the complaints that were received were due to crowded tables, lack of social distancing.
Speaker 4: Lack of mask wearing when away from the table. We're not following the conditions of the health order.
Speaker 2: So to go over contact tracing and surveillance, another important tool for COVID 19 response. Prior to the pandemic, the Health Department.
Speaker 4: Employed five surveillance staff. The surveillance team has grown.
Speaker 2: To 61 people, approximately 50 of whom were reassignments from other city departments. Almost half were called back when the cases slowed and when their department started to.
Speaker 4: Open up more.
Speaker 2: And the team has currently been operating with about 38 staff. We are currently given these precipitously rising numbers.
Speaker 4: We are currently recalling those resigned contact tracers.
Speaker 2: We've also designed and implemented.
Speaker 4: An app, a mobile app, where people can report their contacts.
Speaker 2: Approximately 20% of people have entered some information.
Speaker 4: With the app.
Speaker 2: Our team has investigated 14,021.
Speaker 4: Cases and we've monitored.
Speaker 2: Over.
Speaker 4: 3554 contacts identified through contact tracing.
Speaker 2: Approximately 63% of people completed an interview.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 2: 20%.
Speaker 4: Provided a contact. And providing contacts is really the most important thing that you get out of the interview.
Speaker 2: And that's been a number that's been low throughout the state and the nation.
Speaker 4: Of people providing contact.
Speaker 2: And we've also responded to outbreaks in 81 skilled nursing facilities in congregate living sites. So in epidemiology, contact tracing is very useful to specifically pinpoint root causes such as a single restaurant or a food source outbreak or a single event.
Speaker 4: You'll start talking to numerous people who have all gone to.
Speaker 2: The same place. But once community spread occurs and it becomes really widespread.
Speaker 4: Such as it is right now.
Speaker 2: It's very difficult to identify exact origins of some of where.
Speaker 4: Someone could have acquired COVID 19 or could have been exposed to COVID 19.
Speaker 2: Only 20% of people provide information about a contact, and many do not disclose what kind of gathering they attended during their infectious period. Scientific and surveillance data point to gatherings.
Speaker 4: Whether it's in homes, in public or in restaurants, as a significant contributor to COVID 19 infection. And locally, we have seen peaks. We saw a peak about a week after the Halloween holiday, and we've definitely seen an uptick after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: Contact tracing is a statewide and national challenge.
Speaker 4: There is.
Speaker 2: Insufficient resources.
Speaker 4: Which hamper the ability to pinpoint every infection.
Speaker 2: Especially when cases are rising so rapidly. And the surveillance team has.
Speaker 4: Worked with thousands of Long Beach residents to answer their questions, help with isolation and quarantine guidance, work with their place of employment when needed, and connect them to services. So they have really gone above and beyond to to really walk with people through either them themselves, having covered or being exposed to COVID and really provide really good , sound advice and guidance to help them make the best decision.
Speaker 2: So as a result.
Speaker 4: Of the the really unprecedented rise in cases that we've been seeing and.
Speaker 2: Hospitalizations on November 21st, the.
Speaker 4: State health officer issued a limited stay at home order requiring.
Speaker 2: Non-Essential activities to.
Speaker 4: Stop between 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for those counties who were in the purple tier, which included Long Beach as a part of Los Angeles County. So this was really to try to minimize gathering.
Speaker 2: That was happening after hours. On November 23rd, Long Beach implemented.
Speaker 4: The closure of in-person dining and required nonessential.
Speaker 2: Activities to stop between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.. And on December 2nd.
Speaker 4: In Long Beach, banned gatherings involving more than one household, except for religious services and protests which are constitutionally protected.
Speaker 2: Rights. On December 3rd, the state health officer issued a health order implementing a regional stay at home.
Speaker 4: Order whenever a region's ICU bed capacity.
Speaker 2: Dropped below 15%. And on December six, Long Beach issued a health order to implement the state's December 3rd regional safer at home order.
Speaker 4: Because the Southern California region had dropped below the 15% ICU capacity.
Speaker 2: So. So when the state issued the regional stay at home health order on December 3rd, they divided the state into five regions for monitoring intensive care hospital.
Speaker 4: Capacity moving forward, because.
Speaker 2: When a certain local area exceeds their hospital.
Speaker 4: Capacity, the next step is.
Speaker 2: To reach out to their regional.
Speaker 4: Partners. And so it made sense to the state to see us as a region because we would all be impacted about what's going on in one local area. And when a region's ICU capacity falls below 15%, the new stay at home order will be implemented for a period of at least three weeks.
Speaker 2: Long Beach belongs to the Southern California region, which includes Los Angeles County and Pasadena, Imperial in Inyo.
Speaker 4: Mono. Orange, Riverside. San Bernardino. San Diego. San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Contra. Southern California met this threshold on Friday, December 4th, when we had a capacity of 13% of ICU, of ICU staffed ICU beds. And our current number for ICU capacity in.
Speaker 2: The region is 10.1%. Our ICU capacity in the Long Beach area, in Long Beach area hospitals is currently at 18%. So our stay at home order was implemented at 1159 on December six, and this order closes personal care services, hair salons and barbershops. Limited services, playgrounds and family entertainment centers. All in-person dining is closed throughout the region. Critical infrastructure may remain open, as well as schools.
Speaker 4: Who have previously received a waiver. Retail businesses.
Speaker 2: Will be allowed to operate at 20% capacity and grocery.
Speaker 4: Stores at 35% capacity, and restaurants will remain open for takeout and delivery only. All non-essential travel will be temporarily restricted statewide. Gatherings are prohibited and curfew is in place from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m..
Speaker 2: And again, these restrictions will be in place for at least three weeks and we will continue at the state and local levels to monitor capacity and the other metrics that we've been following. So thank you. I'll turn it back over to Kelly.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Dr. Davis. And just as a corporation, so it is three weeks at a minimum. At that point, the state will continue to look at the ICU capacity. Is that if they project that within a month there will be ICU capacity above 40, sorry, 15%, then they will start to allow you to move back into the tiers. So when we are free of the stay at home, when we have enough capacity as a region which is, you know, all of Southern California, then at that point, then we would move back into purple, which is where we were before the stay at home order. And we would be get we would begin to work from that from that framework. And so I did want to share a little bit with you about Kazak. So one of the things I'm very proud of is that the city has chosen to provide approximately $14 million to our community, our nonprofits and and residents for support during this time frame through a number of different programs. And I'll share some of those with you, as well as with our businesses and for economic resiliency. So it's we really did want to focus and knowing that many in our community are struggling. So I just wanted to share a little bit just a few of the things there. There's so many things that we're working on. But I thought I just hear some of the key things. So we did the Open Streets Initiative, which allowed for 107 temporary parklet locations for 123 businesses, and they have 14 neighborhood open streets. And we did the full closure of Pine Avenue. So they could be the restaurants could be operating outside. We did we served 100 I'm sorry, 1052 businesses and 7000 employees with a PPE distribution for our small businesses and nonprofits. And we have been able to deliver diapers, wipes, formula every Friday since early November. People can come to our providers come to collect to collect supplies, as do individuals. And for our older adults, we've been providing free taxi rides to seniors, to their medical appointments and other essential trips. That is that's the piece through the CARES Act. But they've also been receiving, you know, through a number of our food security deliveries to their house of groceries and meals. Moving forward, we have the Housing Conditions Fund. So we know that there are a number of different housing conditions that can exacerbate COVID things around mold and asthma and those kind of things. So we are providing home repairs to 30, 30 low income households and that is in process right now. And we plan to be done by the end of the year. We have we have open mobile recreation programing through our Parks Department for youth programing. Our thoughts are we have accepted applications for our water organizations and right now 21 artists in 19 different arts organizations have applied and we'll be looking to fund them. We started a digital inclusion program, which started on November 2nd. Our Small Business transmission and technology grants have approved 314 applications for a total of one point just over $1.6 million committed at nonprofit relief grants. Right now, we have 66 organizations who will receive a portion of $525,000 total. We're also funding 16 organizations to the tune of $745,000 to as a to be able to provide service in their communities and really focus on education and outreach and support and access to different services for early childhood. You know, our organizations and people, we've distributed 2000 developmental supply kits in partnership with the library, and over a thousand more are coming. We've released grant opportunities to reimburse childcare providers for costs related to meeting the COVID guidelines because it was very expensive for them to be able to do that. And we rely on the early childhood organizations, you know, so that people can return to work. And we're also providing childcare subsidies to support parents and food security. You know, we've mentioned the over half million pounds of food being distributed and the deliveries through Great Plains. We have extended that to meal and grocery delivery and additional large scale food distribution through our Black Health Equity Fund. We funded nine providers in the community to provide mental health services and 36 black serving nonprofit organizations and micro-businesses to support to support our community. And we're currently in the design of a mental health campaign. And so that design will be completed in the spring, and you'll be hearing much more about that. So that's just a taste of all the things that, you know, that we're planning and doing. You'll be hearing much more coming from the city in terms of the other opportunities for supporting, um, for supporting our communities and our individuals and businesses. So that's what we have for you today. I want to thank you all for your support. We know it's been incredibly difficult and for you as council members and as well, there are many people who are reaching out to you with questions and concerns. And, you know, we're happy to partner with you wherever we can to be able to get answers to those questions and to be able to make sure that everybody has the most accurate information possible and to also support people, you know, as needed. We know that you are doing everything you can to be responsive while also supporting public health within our city. So with that, I and my report and we are open for questions.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I have I do have almost everyone queued up from the council, unless there's any objection. Do we mind if we do the public comments, if we can just get all the public comment done on the item and then we'll go back to the Council for a full discussion. Unless there's any objection to that. Okay, then let's go ahead. And, Madam Clerk, why don't we go through the public comments for the articles?
Speaker 3: Our first speaker is Alyssa Gutierrez.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Mayor, and.
Speaker 4: Members of the city council. My name is Alessio Gutierrez, and I'm a second district resident and the chair of the city's Human Relations Commission. I want to begin by expressing deep gratitude for the men and women working in our health department and on the front lines.
Speaker 2: And thank our city leaders for prioritizing public.
Speaker 4: Health. I am proud to live in a city that trusts and follows the science and makes data driven decisions with the well-being of our residents in mind. As someone who has lost a loved one to COVID recently, I commend the city and state for taking increased action to limit the spread of COVID and the updated stay at home orders will undoubtedly have real economic impacts for many members of our community workers and business owners alike. And so I urge the city to work with our state and federal government to make sure those being economically impacted are supported to the fullest extent. And the reality is that we are living in a global pandemic, losing more people daily than at any point in the last ten months. And while this crisis is impacting all of us, we know that longstanding systemic racism and health inequities have put our low income and communities of color in control of our Long Beach at an increased risk of getting sick and dying. What we need to do is stay home, slow the spread, and support our local businesses safely. We can recover.
Speaker 2: Our economy, but we.
Speaker 4: Can't bring back lost life. We are in this together and.
Speaker 2: We will get through this together. I want to thank you all for your.
Speaker 4: Leadership during these difficult time. And thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Our next speaker is Christine Perry.
Speaker 4: Good evening, everyone. My name is Christine Pettit. I live in the sixth district and the 90806 zip code, one of the districts that was most impacted by the pandemic. I'm also the former chair of the Board of Health and Human Services and outgoing executive director at Long Beach. Forward. Thank you to the Health Department and city leadership for your hard work and decisions to keep our community healthy. I know this has been incredibly difficult for you personally and professionally, and I appreciate your efforts. I urge you to continue to prioritize coupling public health regulations with support for those most impacted by the pandemic, and to continue to strive to make the city's health and resources easy to access and culturally appropriate by partnering with community based organizations who are closest to those impacted. Given the worsening crisis we are facing, any talk of enforcement of regulations for individuals, said center community education and not contribute to the overpolicing of communities and the financial strain people are experiencing and families. Hala. Council Meeting. I want to thank my friend Councilmember Pierce, who encouraged me to speak on this item. I'm proud of her for continuing to stay involved and deliver progress. Up until her last week on council and far beyond that. I know. Thank you all for your hard work and leadership.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Our next speaker is James Waddell.
Speaker 1: Good evening, Mayor, and members of the City Council. My name is James Sweitzer and I'm a third district resident.
Speaker 4: I'm speaking in.
Speaker 1: Support tonight of the stay at home orders from Governor Newsom, the L.A. County Public Health Department, and, of course, the Long Beach Health Department, and want to encourage the city council to support working families by advocating to our federal representatives and hopes that they will pass robust stimulus plans, which should include paying families to stay home and meet our collective needs. I have to say that what I love about Long Beach is how much we look out for each other in the community. And I firmly believe that our collective commitment to doing things like wearing masks, physically distancing, closing dining rooms and staying home is no different from that. Doing these things is an act of care and our collective responsibility as we navigate this global pandemic together. Cliche, but the reality is that we're all facing these hardships and we should not sacrifice the lives of the most vulnerable in our community over these economic interests. I encourage you all to use the knowledge that you gained from this study session to advocate to our federal leadership for meaningful financial relief to our community. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Joey King. Good evening, Mayor. Council members. My name is Joey King and I'm a proud resident of Long Beach, calling as a veteran and business owner. As a business owner whose business has been shuttered as a result of COVID, I understand the desire for many to get back to whatever the new normal will be that works for all of us. But we are at war right now with an ideology that puts us versus them and profit before life. And I want us to take account and realize what is important to us. As a veteran who served to protect the country from all enemies, it bothers me that we are fighting a relentless, invisible foe, and some of us still allow the US versus member mentality to set in. We're at war with a virus that doesn't care if you are a business owner or a customer. I have come to rely on the city of Long Beach to make good decisions both for businesses and its residents. And I trust that the leadership is going to provide a way for both going forward. And I just wanted to say thank you to all the council members and the mayor for the and the beautiful work that's been done so far, and that I trust you'll be going forward. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Our next speaker is. I need a drop more.
Speaker 4: Yes. Hello and good evening, Honorable Mayor Garcia and members of the City Council. My name is We Need Adopted More. And I'm a resident here in the ninth district. As a U.S. Army veteran, I understand the structure and leadership of service are essential workers. Health care worker and first responder have continued to be of service to our community without hesitation. This pandemic has disrupted every aspect of our lives. Our city, government and government leaders and our health department have continued to prevent the data and science about the COVID 19 pandemic. So many members of our community have suffered an untimely death. African-Americans, the elderly community, and those members with preexisting conditions have been impacted greatly. Please consider the health and human aspect as we continue to support each other through this pandemic. Again, thank you for the presentation tonight and thank you for the opportunity to speak on this item presented before you tonight. Thank you again and have a good evening.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Our next speaker is Kiana Montgomery.
Speaker 4: Hello and good evening, Mayor, and members of the City Council. My name.
Speaker 2: Is Kiana Montgomery and I am the.
Speaker 4: First district resident. I would like to thank the city of Long Beach and our health department for prioritizing public health. Thank you to Kelly Policy and Dr. Andy Stevens.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate.
Speaker 4: All the hard work you ladies are doing. I am very proud to live in a city that trusts and follows the science and makes stated data driven decisions for the well-being of the residents in mind. I know that our health department is working very hard to spread of COVID 19. However, the recent statistics.
Speaker 2: Are alarming, especially.
Speaker 4: With our low income communities and communities of color being hit the hardest. I know it's pretty serious up in the ninth district as well as the west side.
Speaker 2: Of the.
Speaker 4: First and seventh District. While we would all like to get back to normal, we do have to say biology, religion and fear because of what science tells us will slow the spread. I hope that my fellow community members will continue to support our businesses equally.
Speaker 2: And that our city.
Speaker 4: Leaders will take the necessary steps to support the economic recovery and find resources for those who have lost their jobs. We are in this together and we will get through this together. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Our next speakers night at Tushnet.
Speaker 4: Hi. This is needed TUSHNET. And I also want to thank the city, the health department, the mayor for following the science. I am Vice Chair of the Mayor's Commission on Senior Citizens and part of the Vulnerable Population. I also am the granddaughter of a small business man who struggled a lot. I think at the same time as we are staying home and following science, which we must do. We also must move to support workers and small business people all the time, both through our own our own funds and federal funds. I thank you for your support, and I hope that we can continue to stay home so we can stop this virus from spreading. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Our next speaker is Nubia. Flor Sandino.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Nubia Flores. I'm here to speak regarding agenda item 30. I live in the ninth District and chairperson of our city's Advisory Commission on Disabilities. I'm not here to speak on behalf of my commission, but as an individual who works and serving our city in this capacity, in addition to working, living and raising my family in the city, I'd like to urge our City Council and my fellow residents of language to please support and follow the guidelines and orders issued by our City Health Department. Because of our Health Department, we are able to have a resource that fully focuses on our city and viewing the numbers daily . We are reaching alarming rate. We must follow the orders issued by our health department and all those in public service have a duty to uphold these recommendations for the welfare of our residents. Actions we take as a community will have an impact on our entire city and especially our most vulnerable populations. Seniors and citizens with Disabilities. I'm here to speak out of concern for the impact this is having on our hospitals and our hospital workers. I understand the economic impact and this is having on our local businesses. But we need to follow the Health Department recommendations and mandate mandates to stay safe and stop the virus spread. Everything we do as a community should be making it easier for people to stay home from economic relief to rent protection so people do not lose their home. We are in the midst of a health crisis wildfire. Entertaining discussions about indoor dining and how.
Speaker 3: Thank. Think your next speaker is sure in Senegal.
Speaker 5: Here in Senegal.
Speaker 4: Good evening. Mayor and city council members. My name is Cherien Cynical and I'm the executive director of Ronnie's house and a resident of the ninth District, a district that's been highly impacted by COVID. Dr. Davis and Kelley, I know this has not been an easy journey, not for you, not for your staff, not for any of us . So thank you for your leadership and your partnership with organizations like ours as well, to ensure that we have the resources to get the mental health resources, testing and prevention services to our community. Every day I work to support small businesses that have been impacted, but at the same time we also deliver food to members of our community and friends impacted by COVID. We have to ensure that we protect lives first, but at the same time, I encourage our staff and city council members to ensure that we also take care of our businesses parallel so that we are not in a worse situation at the end. Councilwoman Pearce, I want to close it off by thanking you for your incredible support. You are truly good trouble and I'm looking forward to seeing where your future goes. Thank you so much. And Mayor. Again, our prayers are with you and your family as well as Councilman Richardson for your mom's recovery. Thank you.
Speaker 3: You. Your next speaker is Dave Shukla.
Speaker 1: Hello? Yes, please begin. If you get rid of the third, I would first like to thank the Health Department and the manager's office and the council for not only and can do anything with not only a very, very thorough and data driven obviously presentation, but but a very human one as well about the human impact and what they plan to do in response. I just want to turn our attention briefly to Slide six. I don't know if that can be brought back up, but it's the one that shows the rates of increase in hospitalizations and other things over the long duration of the health order. Since May 1st, the decision in this country. To reopen prematurely, to abandon the principles of infection control. To ignore the pillars of pandemic response. We have seen something that was predicted, something that was avoidable, and something that one cannot shirk responsibility from. The failure in this country just like 100 years ago is something that can be studied in other countries for generations. Maybe we'll do that too. Maybe we won't. We first got to get through the next couple of months. I want to thank everyone for their support, for their continued efforts to try and. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Thank you to the clerk for going to the comments and to all the public comments we're going to we have, I think almost everyone queued up. So I'm going to go through everyone. We have a customary range. I know you put in a motion to I'm assuming a received file the item. Is that right? It's your first on the list. Your country, Ringo. Yes. Okay, then I have. Did you. Did you have comments or any questions? Not when we report. Thank you to staff for being very thorough and I think that was very true. But a lot of comments were made about the science and that, and that's what we are hoping to follow. Thank you. Thank you. And I've come to one price.
Speaker 2: Hi there. You hear me, Mr. Mayor?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you very much. I want to thank staff for the presentation. I do have several questions, so I probably will have to queue up understanding that I'm going to have a limit in terms of my time. And I want to thank the city manager for allowing this study session to happen. I did reach out to him on the day that the in-person dining order went into effect, requesting a study session or a possible special meeting, because the urgency of the matter, in my opinion, warrants some serious discussion on this topic. So I know that we had the issue of in-person dining was challenged and litigated in L.A. County today. And I understand there's a 50 something page opinion that the judge issued that was adverse to the position of the L.A. County Health Department in terms of data connecting in-person dining to higher risks of getting COVID. Is there someone on the staff that can maybe educate us on the order? Because I certainly don't want to do that if there's a more objective person that might be able to give us a summary.
Speaker 3: Council member. I think Taylor Anderson's on the line.
Speaker 1: She can give an update on.
Speaker 2: Hello, Councilmember. And I'm sorry. The question was what the current order states. I'm sorry. No, it was in regards to the litigation of the current order in L.A. County today. My understanding of that case is that you are correct. There was a tentative ruling. I believe the final came out as well a little bit later. But the county does have an injunction where they if they are going to continue once the governor's orders are lifted, because right now the governor has made a decision to close down restaurants for in-person dining, whether outdoors or indoors. So when that order is lifted, the county to continue their order and the ban on restaurants will need to go through a risk benefit analysis. Considering all the evidence presented to make a determination that it is warranted to shut down restaurants. Okay. And so. So assuming that that decision is not appealed, then when the regional order is lifted, in-person dining would be able to resume in L.A. County. Is that correct?
Speaker 1: This is this is parking.
Speaker 3: I think the answer would be maybe the the court has said that the as Taylor said, the governor's order is in place until it expires or is lifted. And then if the city county of Los Angeles wants to reinstate it, they'll be returned to the purple tier. If they believe that while they're in the purple tier, they need to close the dining, outdoor dining. They would have to conduct the risk benefit analysis. If they did that analysis and they concluded they still needed to close the outdoor dining, then they could do so.
Speaker 2: Okay. I understand. And thank you for that, Taylor. And thank you for that, Mr. Parkin. I the reason I bring that up is because we were you know, I understand that we have been working very closely with L.A. County in interpreting the state's orders, modifying them to the local jurisdiction. But we do have our health department, our own health department. And when the decision was made to close in-person dining, that was a huge, huge blow to not only our local economy, but all of those workers who do not have jobs now weeks before the holidays. And it seems to me that based on just the agreement of the judge in L.A. County, that there should be more to these decisions. Because from the beginning, and I know I've said this before as a business owner, a lot of the decisions on what were closing appeared to me to be arbitrary. It's the activity that produces the biggest risk, the duration and the proximity of people. And so we we I understand and I know with the last time we had this discussion, someone said, you know, it's not a perfect science. We're doing our very best. I understand that. But when we make these decisions that appear to be arbitrary in nature in terms of business sectors. It's very, very frustrating because there are precautions that can be taken to minimize the risk that's associated with the activity, not the sector. So maybe I can just go to Mr. Parking here because I know my time is going to run out and I'm going to queue back up. But Mr. Parking, in light of tonight's study session, what options are available to the council in terms. I know there's a motion to receive and file, but can we make any sort of motions to direct the city manager to consider something or to look further into something or to report back on something? Is that are those options available to us?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: On tonight's study session, the motion is to receive and file. But it would also be appropriate if if the.
Speaker 1: Council members.
Speaker 3: Have additional questions or request additional information, staff can take that direction this evening and report back at a later date.
Speaker 0: And Councilman. Your time has expired.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. I will come back up.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up is Constable Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thanks for the presentation and all of the speakers who joined us and spoke up this evening. It's safe to say that we're ending this year in a very different place than where we started it. When I started this year, I was, you know, things I was excited about was opening new restaurants and banks in my neighborhood and seeing my daughter start kindergarten this year. And obviously, the realities have changed. Our expectations have changed. And with the data that we're seeing, faces rising, stay at home, orders returning. Much of our collective future still remains uncertain. And I understand it's completely been difficult for everyone. Personally, I've, you know, had neighbors, community leaders, best friends I've known a very long time. You know, they're quarantined and dealing with symptoms and positive tests that, you know, I call to check on is a very emotionally draining period of time for everyone. And, you know, people, you know, on our council, people that we love have been impacted very seriously. And it's easy for it's not easy for us to look at the COVID dashboard every day and see that my community in North Long Beach is consistently ranked at the top of the of the most impacted communities in the city. Guess what? We have not reached the two week mark since Thanksgiving and Christmas is coming. I'm afraid of what the next few weeks will continue to hold. I thank heaven that we have a local public health agency that's able to coordinate a local response, that's able to answer our community's questions. That's able, you know, a council member put forward let's have a study session. And they stepped up and brought data. And it was a quality presentation. And their interest is simple, is it's our job as council members to think about the impacts and think about the, you know, the politics. Their job is simple. Their job is to look out for the health of the community. And that's why I'm glad that we do have a health officer and a health department, and that's our only job. I'm encouraged, though, despite all that we've gone through, I am certainly encouraged. And because hope is on the horizon, we know that vaccines are in the final approval process is is projected for distribution early 2021. I'm excited to hear the rhetoric coming out of Washington finally that we'll will soon have a science based federal pandemic response program. We'll have a robust economic recovery program. You know, we need to we need to be doing the same thing. We need we have an immediate need to help keep our residents safe, help reduce the rate of COVID 19. And and it may seem that what's good for public health clashes with what's good for our economy. That's clear. I'm reminded, though, of what Sage said at Sage. He's the director of the Office of Economic Research, director at Cal State Long Beach at the Long Beach Quarterly Economic Report. He said his quote was The economic costs of restrictive public health orders are much lower than the costs of failing to contain the virus and shutting down our economy again. Stay at home orders is the analogy really stood out to me? Stay at home orders are the economic medicine for presenting support for preventing economic heart attacks. So he's asking us to come together and whether short term pain or long term gain that resonates with me. This is we're all in this together and it's a short term pain that we're in. But while we're mindful of the short term pain and how it's affecting our businesses and how it's affecting our families, I hear it all the time. We open new restaurants that in north lobbies. They were committed years ago to come and they opened in the middle of this. So I can't go to them with nothing. We are not helpless. We should do all that we can in the immediate to provide immediate relief, but also begin designing what our game plan is for recovery. The President, with the new administration on hand, new voices coming out of city council, it's an opportunity to cleanse the palate and embrace a new collective focus. We have to develop our strategy for what what the future looks like that time is right now we have. What that means is paying attention not just to economic health, but as well as the social health of our city. That means balancing. Yeah. We got to talk about how do we bring back industries and jobs, but also we have to look at vulnerable businesses, mom and pop restaurants and people who need immediate, immediate relief to survive. We have we are still in a housing and homelessness crisis. We have to continue to produce housing. We have to continue to invest in services. We have to coordinate our letter, our legislative strategy, federal and state. We've got to update those state and Fed led agendas to be aligned with this recovery. That's that's what we need to be focused on. We know that, you know, some sectors are being hurt, aviation, others. We also know that, you know, the port is booming and there's opportunities there. How do we do that? Leverage those to our own advantage. And so by aligning with both the region and the national efforts, I think we can we can put ourselves in a really good position. And we're not starting from scratch. Economic developments been killing it. You know, tonight we're going to hear about a restaurant retention strategy. We already have. We got a memo today on the racial equity reconciliation initiative we've already done in.
Speaker 5: 2010 or 5 minutes are up.
Speaker 1: Well, here's what I'll say. I think we're well positioned to lead. We should we should focus and do what we can today to focus on recovery. That's where we should be focused. Thank you, Councilmember. Next up is. Customer. Super not. I think I think that was. You're not quite correct. I think this was from the last one. So I'm sorry about that. Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I have several questions. I want to start by thanking Tom and Linda and all the members of the city staff who have really stepped up and taken the lead in ensuring that our city has the infrastructure necessary. When you look at slides five and six, it's really impressive what you've been able to do. I do have some questions about number 11 and food distribution. I'm under the impression that while food funding has been allocated, that we don't have any specific approval from the Fed or the state to continue past December 31st. And that action may be needed on behalf of the Council to potentially utilize different types of funding. I think it's important that that discussion be had at the council and I look forward to hearing from city staff on that. I specifically requested a report last Tuesday at the Economic Development and Finance Committee of how much money in each of those categories has been both committed and distributed and. I'm disappointed to find out that we don't keep a master list of that on an ongoing basis with the rate and timeline for distributing funds to people. We really need to be looking that at a regular basis. I appreciate the staff. Many remember that at a council meeting I was the one who requested the data dashboard. I have specifically put forward requests when the city staff added additional data. My agenda item today talks about what I requested via email, and the city staff have really stepped up to provide in terms of ICU beds and regular beds and hospitalization rates and all of that. But I think that we do need to talk about the numbers and the strategy. So I think it's important for us to take a minute and thank the city staff for all the advocacy. I know the community doesn't always know, but we are lobbying at both the federal and state level constantly for our residents and our businesses. If I could hear back from the staff, do we believe that we will be returning to the purple red orange tiers, or did we believe that the governor was indicating on a go forward basis we would be looked at as regions?
Speaker 6: Councilmember in terms of the the where you go back right after after our region um is projected to have the 15% capacity we would go back as counties. Right. So we are aligned at the state level in the color or in the tier color of L.A. County. So when we go back, we would be in the purple. Um, assuming that our numbers remain in the purple category.
Speaker 3: And this is Tom. I wanted to clarify one thing from my question earlier just to make it clear. So despite the the legal ruling today by the judge that really dealt with the L.A. County decision of a specific order on restaurants, regardless, there is now a different situation. The governor has put in a statewide ban on not only restaurants, but a number of other things. So that is the controlling factor. So even if we were to return or during this time, restaurants are going to remain closed, not just in Long Beach, but in Pasadena, in L.A. County and Orange County, because the governor's order trumps that local health order.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 6: Yes, they.
Speaker 2: Are.
Speaker 6: When the region. Yes. From the region. When we come back out of the regions, we'll come back to it as as each county will take on the tier that they were in when they went into the stay at home order.
Speaker 2: But now that we've gotten to where we are and we've seen the data that really is of most concern is ICU capacity. We don't think there'll be a change to that. And maybe the questions for the mayor. I know that he's been in contact with the feds, the state, all that, and what his impressions are on where we're going. And perhaps I know he's in a lot of advocacy to bring funds locally. What his impressions are on when that might be possible.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to interpret the question. So I think I think what you're asking is when do you when do we think that the current statewide system that we're in could change back to a more like health jurisdiction approach? Is that that was that the question?
Speaker 2: Or when we go back to health jurisdictions, now that we know that the most important factor is ICU capacity, now that we know that the the disease is only deadly. 2.012.01.01 2.006% of people, depending on your age group, do we believe that ICU beds will be the go forward basis and standard that we use across the region ? And how can we as a region? Because my questions are then going to go into we set up hospitals, we laid off nurses. Community hospital is still closed. All of these factors are in play that we as a region and as a county or as a city, could really step up and beef up to be prepared the way we were at the beginning of the pandemic for a surge that we didn't see. Well, now it's coming and those resources aren't in place. And if we are going to be on a go forward basis talking about hospitalizations and ICU beds as the primary, then we really need to go back to I know Saint Mary's had two additional floors full of beds, but now we need the nurses and the staff to support that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I mean, the only way I mean, I can just say that I think that the stay at home order that's currently in place, a statewide order, will not be lifted until the state believes that ICU capacity is at a place that can take more openings or the stay at home order to be lifted . I can't speak to what the most important thing. I think hospitalizations clearly around ICU seem to be are more the focus now. But there's still the state is still looking at the positivity rate, is still looking at other types of capacity, is still looking at PPE as metrics. I just think hospitalizations become and ICU has become the most important metric. And I don't know if if Kelly or someone else wants to answer beyond that, but that's that's as far as much as I know.
Speaker 3: This is Tommy. I think that's correct. And when we would exit this, we would come back into the purple and then we would have the ability as a health jurisdiction then to look at all the data and to see where are our risk areas. You know, there was a comment earlier about, you know, arbitrary versus non arbitrary decisions. We do not try to do we try our very best not to make any arbitrary decisions. We look at everything. We try to make the best risk case scenario. And so we will have that same ability as we come out of this to be able to make some decisions on what the health officer feels is the best way forward, whether that's ICU capacity, whether it's how to limit contact in groups and to do that safely.
Speaker 2: And so for my next question, I know I'm probably I won't stay out of time. One of the things that residents are kind of frustrated with, at least when competing in my office, is that when we sit at community front yard meetings with the police commander or the lieutenant and we talk about there's been an increase of from 5 to 15 petty thefts and someone says that's a 200% increase. The responses out of one side of our mouth, it's only an increase of ten out of a population of 100 of that 500,000. Or if they're just talking about the east side or the east division or the neighborhood, they give that in perspective. And I think that one of the challenges we have right now is that out of the opposite side of our mouth, when you go to Slide 13, you're talking about the percents versus the raw numbers. And so when we said that there was a 248% increase in hospitalizations. It didn't really come with the data necessary to say it went from 41 to 126. And by the way, that statement.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And that 126 was divided by 1400 hospital beds or 1600 hospital beds, but that the capacity overall is important because it's not just filled with COVID patients. It's also filled with stroke victims and heart attack patients and so on and so forth, all recue. But I hope that someone on the staff will kind of talk to the percentages versus raw numbers issue that the community really has some consternation with when one agency is able to use it one way, but another agency says to use it a different way within our own our own city.
Speaker 1: Next up is member Pearce.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. I want to first just give a big thank you to our health department and everybody that is working on this every single minute of their lives since COVID has started. I know many of you have not taken time off and that this has completely occupied your time with the city. So I know that that's hard and I just want to say thank you. I also know that we had some nurses that had attempted to sign up for this item as well, and I want to tell them thank you for their service. Being on the front lines of COVID cannot be thrilling. As you saw, The Times magazine came out with front line workers as their Person of the Year. I do not believe that anybody wants this crisis to continue, and I think that we've all tried to figure out the best way to listen to the experts. I think some of us have constantly said we're not the experts here, but we trust experts to be able to guide us to make the best decisions. The COVID spike is something that everybody told us was going to happen in November or December, and it did. You know, walking around my neighborhood, go into the grocery store, I go to restaurants probably once a week, at least once a week. I go to the socialist every Friday. And so seeing that that people were letting their guard down a little more, definitely put me on edge. But I was not surprised when the numbers spiked. I think the only thing that has disappointed me in the process has been that this council, we kind of came up with some creative ideas, which is sometimes what we do. We come up with ideas. We ask staff to try to implement them if they're able to. But the fact is, the crisis has been so difficult that when this first started, we haven't been able to see the things go into full fruition. And one of the things that I just wanted to understand from staff is really just about contact tracing. I know in the beginning when we talked about opening up again, we said that each restaurant was going to do a contact tracing, that there would be some lists, that people would collect phone numbers. To my knowledge, the ordinary is the only place that I've been to that's actually asked me for my phone number. And so I know that you mentioned that there was an app. What is the staff doing, whether it's making it public or working with these restaurants or other small businesses on how to improve our contact tracing. And I know that it was mentioned that it can get out of hand pretty quickly if people are going to multiple places or having a superspreader event. But if I could just understand that one piece, that would be super helpful.
Speaker 6: Councilmember. I'll start the answer and I'll ask Dr. Davis to join me with any additional follow up. So the way contact tracing works is we are notified, right, when a test result comes in positive and we call that person and say, you know, we gather some information and then we ask them who they've been in contact with . And so they only 20% of people like to tell us who they've been with or where they've been as a gathering. So, yeah. So we don't get a lot of information through that contact tracing process. The other piece of you have folks who have been among multiple gatherings and in different places. It's very difficult to say. You narrow it down to one of those. It could have been one of five different places that they've been going forward. So there are some restaurants who have collected information. Right. So you come in, you sign your name and you provide your phone number where if a case is identified to be part of that restaurant, because there are outbreaks at restaurants, specifically among their staff. And so they often collect that information so that if there is an outbreak, among other sorry, there is a case from a staff member who may have been interacting with the folks, then the folks can be notified. Right. That they that they had had a possible exposure while at the restaurant. But that's you know, that's one way to do it. But you wouldn't otherwise. It's really about, you know, who people have been with and the gatherings. And we're finding people are very hesitant to tell us going forward because they don't want to put you know, they don't want to get folks in trouble. I think is the real is the real answer there. So, Dr. Davis, do you have anything else to add there?
Speaker 2: I would just add that sometimes the restaurant will have numerous cases not necessarily linked, but they'll let us know of like three of their employees will become infected.
Speaker 4: And so then they'll.
Speaker 2: Contact the health department to report that.
Speaker 4: So that's another way that we will find out from a restaurant that something might be going on and then we might dig into that a little bit further. But otherwise, yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Person that we are interviewing has to disclose to us that they went to this particular restaurant. Okay. Thank you for those answers. I mean, I guess I was trying to you one of the things I've told some of the the restaurant advocates is that's minimum.
Speaker 5: Period for 5 minutes. Right?
Speaker 2: Okay. Um, I just hope that there is some new process that might be helpful and build some more trust in that process. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up is Councilman's and Dallas.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just would love to take this opportunity to thank our city team, not only for the work that they've done in the service and service that they have provided our community during this crisis, but also the personal sacrifices that that you have made. Councilmember Pierce was right there. Ever since day one, you've been very active in making sure that you keep our residents safe. Ever since the first day of this pandemic. So I want to thank you. Thank you very much. From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of my residents. And this year has made me particularly thankful to have an amazing health department and a dedicated professional staff that have been able to adapt to these changes and circumstances that continue to assist our residents, just as we recognize what we have been able to accomplish. I think it's also important to highlight the issue that we must address moving forward, especially if we can, as we continue to see record breaking Corona virus numbers going way high. You know, like today, yesterday broke workers the day before broke a record. And today our records were broken again. So. You know, thank you for the incredible work that our health department says. And very thankful that we have our own here in the city. To me, the first among all of these issues is equity and understanding the effects that COVID is having on different neighborhoods. And residents of our city who are just two are in different situations with very limited access to health and resources. And as we saw in the presentation earlier today, Hispanics have been Hispanic and Latinos have been the ones that have shown to be getting it at higher numbers. So I thank you for for all the work that you're doing, looking at this topic through the equity lens, the communities that I represent in the First District have been disproportionately impacted by this virus. And I also have the privilege of representing communities of senior and long term care facilities who are all incredibly at high risk of this severe virus. Central, west and North Long Beach especially had have seen higher numbers all through the summer. And I now suffering from this disproportionately high climb in case numbers. It is incredibly important to me and to my residents that we redouble down our commitment to addressing these trends and making sure that our low income communities have the resources they need to remain safe and healthy, along with the rest of our Long Beach residents. And I'm so grateful for the work of our office again, our equity office. And I hope that we can continue to respond with emphasis on preventing the spread of COVID and preventing, you know, the record breaking numbers again. My my heart goes out to all of our business owners as well, because we have a lot in the First District that are suffering. And I think that through there, we also need to look through an equity lens and be able to assist those smaller restaurants like it was said before earlier on this call, the ones that are the mom and pop shops that we really need to focus on and help them through. And we we can't forget anybody. Everybody is being affected by this. And I think that it's very important that we all stick together and support one another. You know, we don't want right now we have worse numbers, very, very bad numbers. Right. Today was a very bad day for us here in Long Beach after receiving those high numbers. But let's try to keep that on today. Let's let's really work hard to not get even more bad numbers like that. And that, you know, is my focus. And, you know, I'm really encouraging all of my residents in the first District to do their part just as I'm doing my part. And all we really need to do is really provide all the resources that that they need during this pandemic. I do understand the fatigue that everybody has at this moment, especially not being able to see loved ones and being, you know, outside gathering and celebrating each other.
Speaker 1: And the.
Speaker 5: Moments. And it hurts for 5 minutes. Right.
Speaker 2: Thank you for your back up. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman. Next up is council member Austin. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to first of all, thank God for public comment. I think it was excellent and the comments from most of my colleagues. So with that said, I don't think I'll need all 5 minutes to just again, thank staff as well for the excellent presentation. Many people have been asking about the data, how we reached conclusions. I think this presentation was was was very clear. It was sobering and eye opening at the same time. You know, I also want to thank the many city employees who are working, stepping up and working out of classification. I think it shows the true spirit of public service and rallying under a very difficult circumstance and a unique circumstance. I want to reemphasize that this there is no playbook for what we are experiencing. No city officials, no city council. All, at least in the last hundred years or so, has ever had to deal with the challenges that this council and our city officials have to deal with today. And so I really think that when when you look at All Things Considered, how we responded over the last eight months has been pretty, pretty impressive, considering when you consider everything. I think obviously we are still in. Right, very much in it and we're in the eye of it. And I think we need to remain committed and adaptable as a city to meet the immediate challenges and challenges that seem to be changing by the day. But I think also as a city council, when I say adaptable, we need to, you know, come prepared every Tuesday night to try to identify and or redirect resources to provide the support to our residents. This is, like I said, uncommon on unprecedented times for for workers, for families, for our small businesses, for our health care workers and essential workers who are on the front line. So many people being impacted and devastated by this pandemic. We need to recognize that. And I think it's important also just to recognize that I think a couple of my colleagues have touched on it. But perspectives on this virus seems to also be being driven by geography and individuals personal circumstances. I ask anybody listening to my voice of particularly those in the public to put yourself in the shoes of somebody less fortunate, someone who doesn't have the ability to work from home, somebody who is more vulnerable to some of the health impacts, someone who might be out of work, unemployed, someone whose business may be closed. I mean, there are numerous examples of impacts here that we need to always be considerate of. And I know that the decisions and I ask the people to trust that the decisions being made by our health officials, by our city council, comes from a place of of reducing the spread of the deadly virus, fighting a war against an invisible enemy right now that is really gaining ground on this by the day and understanding that the common enemy here is COVID 19. That's the boogeyman, right? And that's where we need to come together. Many of you have already my colleagues have already alluded to the fact that, yes, we need to come together, we need to work together. We need to be selfless in and about community. And in doing so, we have to take care of ourselves. We have to take care of our families. We need to hunker down and minimize our exposure. So I just say all that to say that that I appreciate the the the presentation here tonight and the discussion . And I think collectively, we all need to be looking to the federal government to provide and step up and provide the support it needs to provide. We need to get these these legislation passed and moved to local governments, to cities, to and directly to people who are out of work and impacted families throughout our country. And. So that is something that each and every one of us and city council members can do. Yes, our state legislative committee will be focused on this, but our residents can get involved with this as well. Are U.S. senators and senators and other states, the White House, they need to hear from you. Those are my comments. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Great comments. Appreciate those. We I think have everyone that's gone once are ready. So we're recruiting back up folks for a second time. I have Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm going to try to pick up where we left off. I don't know if Mr. Modica or Kelis want to tackle the difference between escalation of crimes by percentages versus escalation of cases by percentages, and how and why that's important that the public understand the spread through that and why that matters.
Speaker 1: Actually, Catherine Mango, I apologize. I actually had Councilwoman Pryce before you, and.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: And. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilman.
Speaker 1: And then I have Councilman in house.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate that. I just want to go back to it's going to be a little bit choppy because we're cuing in that and that's fine. So everyone, please bear with me. I want to go back to the comments that I started out making, and I just want to make sure Mr. Modica and our city team understands that when I'm talking about arbitrary decisions, I'm not talking about our decisions. City of Long Beach Health Orders. I mean, let's be fair. Most of our health orders have mimicked almost to the letter that of L.A. County. But as I mentioned, the last time we had this discussion, my concern was that the sectors that were allowed to open and closed in the tier system. So I understand and I'm able to compartmentalize them for the sake of this discussion. I understand that we're in this three week regional closure period, and that's not really what I want to talk about. I want to talk about what happens after that three weeks and where can our health department exercise some independence in terms of the decisions that we are making? And my concern is I haven't read all 50 plus pages of the judge's opinion today. I'm probably right about a third of the the opinion and I tend to agree with a lot of the analysis regarding the data supporting certain sectors, because what we're really concerned about this is a very valid concern. This is a public health crisis, and we all need to do everything that we can to make sure that we mitigate this trend. And I think we all agree on that. But as a business owner, I can tell you that it's really, really hard. And this is one thing that I know we're not making any motions or anything, but I would I would really plead with the city manager to talk with our city team, perhaps about. I don't know how else to. Summarize it other than bedside manner. Because when we tell people, you know, these are the orders, I'm sorry, I know you're suffering, there's going to be grant opportunities available. And we all know that out of 30,000 people who businesses that need a grant, there's only 2400 openings. We know a majority of those people aren't going to get it. So we need to be mindful of the impact of these orders if we need to have public health orders to protect the spread of this disease, I'm 1,000% supportive of that. But as a business owner, it's really, really difficult to get this cold, hard message of, yeah, this is how it is and you're just going to have to deal with it because the person that's delivering that message to us isn't the one that's looking at their employees in the face and saying, I'm sorry, you're not going to get a paycheck before Christmas. And I think that the thing that triggered the request for me to have the study session is we put almost no thought at all into following L.A. County in the in-person dining. Restriction, we almost immediately adopted it. I don't remember if it was within a day or maybe within 48 hours we adopted it. And what I would like to do, and I'm asking the city manager to explore the feasibility of in the future when there is an order by L.A. County. What I would like to consider is, is it and I know we have this business working group before, but I would love for us to create a working group now. That the Health Department can consult with and talk about, so that as part of the factors that they're considering in terms of closures, they're also considering what are the activities, what part of this activity is exposing people to additional risks of help it? Is there a way to mitigate that specific aspect of the activity that is risky? Can we fashion an order that's different from L.A. County but minimizes the risk of that activity? And I know I used this example before. I know we're no longer there because the governor's orders regarding the purple tier were modified, and rightly so. I completely agree with that. But, you know, we talked about this as the basic example. This is what I'm talking about when I talk about arbitrary. A massage and a massage studio was not allowed, but a massage and a chiropractor studio was. Why is it because the chiropractors office fogs the room before you go in now? Is it because the misuse has certain sanitary requirements that the misuse of the spa doesn't have? No, it's the same activity, the same contact, the same proximity, the proximity and the same vibration. So I just I want us to maybe not be in lockstep with L.A. County in every step of this. And I know that in three weeks, we're going to have some opportunities. I certainly hope that our health department and our city manager who oversees our health department looks very, very closely at the data related to in-person dining for what happens after that three weeks, because it's very, very hard for me to fathom as I walk past the park and there are groups of people sitting outdoors in a circle, somewhat live music, enjoying their picnics. I don't understand why that can't happen at an outdoor restaurant. We spent so much money on.
Speaker 5: These are the 5 minutes are up.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Mr.. Mr. Murdoch was there. Did you want to respond to that?
Speaker 3: Yes. There are a couple of things that you want to talk about there, so I can't remember. Just the empathy is absolutely at the core of what we believe. It hurts all of us to have to do this to any business. And if that's not coming across, I am just we will try harder. But again, we are in the responsibility of having to issue directives and orders, but and communicate that clearly. But just know that the team, including the Health Department and business and PD and code enforcement and everyone who does this empathizes completely. And I've seen it in their eyes as I as I talk to them over the video or hear it in their voice. When we have to make these decisions, it pains people. So please know that that is at their hearts and we will always continue to do that. I do want to say that in in as we decided some of these orders, there has been benefit and some regional consistency so that we provide clarity to businesses who are dealing with with all these different orders and trying to understand what the rules are. But each one is looked at individually. And there are you know, a lot of times there most times we have reached the same conclusion as L.A. County as we went through these and tried to make some decisions that made sense based on the data. I'll tell you, the decision on that Sunday to close dining was that was probably the hardest one for the team. And, you know, L.A. County had been sending up warning signs that whole week that their numbers were increasing. And we weren't quite seeing that our numbers hadn't been there yet. And they made that decision. They put in some benchmarks and said, when we get to these points, that's when we're going to have to take additional action to try to avoid where we are today. And so we essentially were looking at that. And when that when that came in, we didn't just say let let's do the exact same thing. We on a Sunday called All of our team in we reran the data that we had had from the week which showed we were probably at about 21 cases per 400 per 100,000 , and that they were at 40. And we go, Wow, okay. That was what we were. We were on Friday, we had the team rerun the data and it had jumped within those two days to 34 or 36 in that area. And we were on the exact same trajectory, and that's how that decision was made. That was when we said we have to try something to try to keep our hospital capacity from getting overrun. And that's when we made that decision. A week later, when they started banning gatherings, we slowed down and said, we want to really look at the data. And we probably spent another three or four days waiting for all the cases to come in and to see if we were on that same trajectory and we were. And so, you know, unfortunately, that was predictive of where we are today, which is we were hoping not to get to that 40 per 100,000, 45 per 100,000 and almost 10% positivity rate. But unfortunately, that's where it's been headed. And now we're in a position where we're trying to preserve hospital capacity and there's only 10% left in the entire region. So I do want to say, in some cases we were right there with one L.A. County because we have the same belief in our in our medical professionals believe we're in the same place. There have been some other areas where we just said we're not you know, that's not something that we're going to do. So I hope that provides some clarity.
Speaker 6: Councilmember I just wanted to add that a little bit. I know that in some cases simple things seem like an arbitrary nature that are the decisions that are made at the state level. So they look at what is medically necessary. You know, there was a lot of concern and confusion around things like massages that are medically necessary versus not. And so that was the way they passed it out. We had because it was determined at the state level to be that way. We have to follow that. We don't have a choice to do something differently when the state mandates it within a tier. So when something is listed in the purple tier to come that way, then it is up to us to implement that level of purple tier. We were as open as possible and we had opened everything that was allowed to be opened in the purple tier prior to the increases of the cases. And then we started shutting back down. And I think that there has been some confusion in the restaurant conversation about the restaurants themselves and the things they can put in place to be safe. And many restaurants were doing a great job in terms of the safety. But the model of a restaurant is that people come to a restaurant. It was the only business where you could gather from outside of your household, take your mask off and sit a foot away from each other. That's what a restaurant table looks like. So if me and five of my friends, all from different households, decided to come to a restaurant and one person was pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic to the point that they were exposing people, then people, you know, then it was an exposure risk. So that was what we looked at, you know. So our concern was it's masks an hour and a half, often 2 hours. A lot of talking in a. There's an you know, and so the only opportunity would be to, you know, for restaurants is to, say, family members only. But we've had a very difficult time in other categories where we have certain families only. And it's amazing how many businesses I have seen that are supposed to be family only, that have very large families that are all the same age. And so I'm just trying to you know, we're trying to figure out the risk levels. And for restaurants, when we looked at that and the fact that everybody's so close together for so long with their mouth off completely, then that was it. Even if the even if the restaurant follows all the rules. So that was our step for it right there. We know it was very painful. And as Tom said, that is the most difficult decision that we've had to make throughout. But we look at the risk levels. There are assigned risk levels for different for different business groups, different business sectors. And so that is what the state works from when they're deciding what those next steps are. Restaurants, bars are in the higher level of those risk levels. Things like nightclubs are the highest. They've never been open. So I just want you to know that, you know, it may feel arbitrary, but at this local level, we really are trying to parse out what exactly it looks like at a science level about people being close together, about whether they're masks in light, the impact of mass , all of those things. So, you know, we're happy to have and share our decision making about that, um, you know, going forward. So I just wanted you to understand that that is, that, that is, you know, some of the things that we were looking at.
Speaker 2: Know, and I just just briefly, I just want to thank you, Ms.. Collopy and Mr. Motueka, for your response. I appreciate that. I get it. You are in a very, very difficult spot. I don't even know how you guys are doing what you're doing, but I want us to be consistent. And if we're not going to allow the exact activity that you just described, I want to invite you to drive by or Lena Park, Marina Vista Park, Bixby Park, Eye Bluff Park. I want you to drive around and see my husband and I went to a yoga on the bluff class the other night with people with 300 people we've never met before. The other day we were within a foot or two of them. There were literally 300 people there. We were there for an hour and 15 minutes. There are book clubs being held in the park. There are family birthday parties held in the park. People seem to think that if you're outdoors, you're okay. I just don't want to penalize these businesses. I understand the health risks. If we need to clamp down on activities that are risky, we should do that. I just don't want to kill the economy in these people's ability to pay their employees. If we're allowing that activity and turning a blind eye in another setting, I want us to be consistent. But I know my time is up, so I'm going to move.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I have Councilman Mango and councilmembers in Day House. I want to there's one thing that's come up a few times. Mr. Murray, can you clarify before you continue on? I know it's come up a few times that our orders are going to end in a couple of weeks. Can you clarify the timing actually of the statewide order so that we have a clear moving forward?
Speaker 3: Yes. So the governor order basically put in a those closures. When the region hits 15% capacity in your ICU or less, it goes into effect for a minimum of three weeks. And then you reassess at that point and see where is your ICU capacity. And if you can project, I think four weeks out that you're going to be in a much different spot and you're going to have a lot more hospital capacity. That's when you get returned to the tier. So three weeks is the minimum. It is likely or possible that it is going to be more. We are starting to see even more cases now than when the order went into effect last week. So we will need to be reassessing where we are in that three weeks and see what our capacity is.
Speaker 1: And I know and just in the conversations that I've had as well, from what I'm hearing from the regional folks on the timing is there is there is no one on the medical side that thinks the statewide safer at home order is going to be over in 3 to 3 weeks. In fact, their concern is going to go, of course, through the new year end and into January just because of the amount of gathering. But I think we're all hoping, of course, that that that the numbers go in the other direction. Let me come to Amber Mango.
Speaker 2: So before I get started, I'd love for Before we start my time. I love the questions I've asked at previous time intervals to be answered. So I think that it's important for Kelly to have the opportunity to share why percentages are important versus straight case numbers.
Speaker 6: So, Councilman, we look at both. Right. So I would like we don't just look at percentages, but when we started to see, so what? One of the things that we do look at is so if you are looking at the curve, right, of the increase, it's the steepness of that curve, the ability to prepare, the ability to know what's coming. So, for instance, the other thing is that we don't take we don't take daily numbers, right? So it's not like I you know, we go through and and take like our lowest number and then and then commit. But we say, okay, over an average of seven days, what's that average? And then we do the rolling average to make sure that there is consistency in those numbers. So. Right. So for instance, when we talk about the number of cases and our average number of cases that are reported in a day. So, so over seven days, the average number that was reported in a day at the beginning of November was 39. The average number in a day in this current seven days is 285. So that 285 number is higher average than any other number that we have had as a system since COVID began. So we're looking at the numbers themselves, but we're also looking at the rate of increase or like within a certain number of days to understand what those impacts look like. So when a rate of increase is so much, it can overwhelm the hospital more quickly. Right? Because all of a sudden, you know, that two weeks out, your hospitals are going to be more impacted and then you may have increased deaths. So that's the way that we look at it. So we don't reach sort of we do look at averages, we do look at the rates. And those are the kinds of things that that we're showing. So if someone wanted to see the data and understand what the different days look like and what we're pulling from, if you go to the external facing dashboard, if you take your cursor across that dashboard, it will show you each day what the numbers are for both your your local hospitalizations and like the number of people being hospitalized as well as how many are in our regional. So anyone can sit down, they can go across that and they can understand and then they can take that seven day average if they want and then calculate from there. So that is the reason why we look at all the different all the different pieces of it.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I kind of want to address something that Tom said related to gatherings and it kind of goes into councilwoman prices item. These people are going to make their own decisions, whether you close external dining, outdoor dining, indoor dining, any of those things. People are still going to make their own decisions. So an example is. There's a couple in my neighborhood. They said they went out to dinner with two other couples. And so, of course, I ask, do you feel safe? Why do you think that is? They said, you know, our kids all go to preschool together. Whenever one of us gets a cold, we all get the cold. We all know we're in each other's pod. So we're adults and we want to make decisions. If we want to eat out together, we aren't spreading any more than the pod that we're in. We have a very restrictive policy on this, that and the other. And our preschool allows us to only hang out with people that are exposed in our group. And so then you say, okay, well, here's a group of people who seem to be discussing that. They're very cautious. They don't see members of their family, they don't see their parents. They don't see any of these other people who are high risk. But they.
Speaker 4: Recognize that for them to do their jobs and go out into the.
Speaker 2: World and do what they do, they do it very safely. But when they are together and have that opportunity, they lean on each other, they babysit each other's kids. And those three couples are a unit. And so who are we as a city to say that they are superspreaders or that they're a spreader? If people online who are are harassing people and saying, you went out to dinner and you cause COVID and the language has just been terrible. And so for me, I just hope that we can take a step back and have some compassion, have some trust for one another and the decisions that they want to make. And then also recognize that we are local government and we're here to create systems and support systems.
Speaker 4: That help people.
Speaker 2: Make good decisions. But at the end of the day, we have personal freedom that allows people to make those decisions. And so we need to be able to find a way to support not destroying our economy at the same time as people are going to continue to make these decisions. And I'm I take it very seriously, I am the transportation to my God, mom, who has cancer, my godfather had to be put in a senior care facility. I get it. I'm very careful. My husband is very careful. Our child is very careful. But at the end of the day, I get and understand.
Speaker 4: Both sides of the argument and we as a city.
Speaker 2: Have to recognize that people, when they see the numbers on the dashboard, like they do see today. There are 18,370 confirmed cases and there are 15,438 cases recovered. Maybe more, maybe less. But that numbers tentative. Tom talks about that's 2232 people.
Speaker 4: Out of 500,000.
Speaker 2: So I guess my next question for Kelly is, do you take the number 2234 people out of 500,000? Or are you using one of the other studies that talks about for every one person that's positive, five people actually have it. What is your what is your basis of that? And then what can we do? I think the one thing we haven't done well is communicate. I know the dashboard is something I requested. I really appreciate. I think it's great. But people don't can they cannot conceptualize 100,000 people. So if you were to say, okay, I believe that 2232 people let's round up to 2300 people have tested positive and still have COVID. And we believe that that's out of every 100,000 people or I'm sorry, that's out of the whole study, that's 500,000 people. And then you divide it down and divide it down and divide it down, and you're able to say, okay, neighbors, one out of every 1000 people have it. There are 1400 people in your neighborhood or something. That's more. Fathomable, but 100,000. The numbers are just overwhelming and people don't like numbers. Is there any ideas that we can have or bring back to the council or consider for better communication strategies?
Speaker 6: Um, so Councilmember, the, the, you know, the cases that we report, the 18,000 are known cases. Right. Those are the ones who actually got tested and came through. Yeah. There is there are studies that indicate that anywhere between eight and ten times that number. Um. Right. Who have it and that are walking around. So that becomes a greater spreading opportunity. And it could be through that, right. Because there is so much community spread that we are, you know, that we're seeing the increases in the hospitals or in seeing the the increases in the cases. And the thing about, you know, COVID is that some people are completely asymptomatic. They feel great. They don't think it's a big deal. They're like ready to go and wonder when they can leave the house. You know, there are others who may be the exact same age with a very small underlying health condition who who get very ill and long term illness that they don't have ability. So I think, you know, there is still so much unknown about this virus that the key piece for people to understand is, you know, if we know that, you know, that 300 folks, you know, came through. So, you know, let's just say 3000 people. Right. Because of all the different people being tested, everything like that, um, like were tests, you know, came through. This is not going to be the right number. So my math on off the cuff is not working. Well, just say 200 people a day come through right over a week. So we've got 1400 people who test positive you times that by ten you have 14,000 people who are currently walking around with the possibility of being positive. They are then exposing everybody else around them. Our work here is about creating opportunities so that they are not additionally exposing other people to those numbers. We don't see the impact. We know that when cases go up, hospitalizations go up, and we know and hospitalizations go up, deaths go up, and we're doing everything we can to stop that piece. And so that is why we're asking people to really follow all the guidelines. And, you know, honestly, it is a personal choice. You can choose to not wear your mask. You can choose to gather against the order because gathering actually is not allowed under the order. And you can choose you know, you can choose all those things. But what you're choosing is to possibly be infected and to spread it to others. And that is a that is you know, it's a very difficult time for us right now. And what we're asking is for everybody to just settle in and get us through this time frame and to allow us to get through this, to really just stay at home, keep your masks on. Even when we get out of this, you know, the stay at home order is to continue to follow the protocols so that we don't have another surge and that we can start to reopen, because that is our goal, is to get this town reopened as well and for people to be safe and healthy.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'll make one last comment. So at the dyas, the night we made the recommendations to city staff related to the spending of the $40 million that came from the CARES Act, we talked about the different pots of money that were available. One of those pots of money that I specifically addressed and Mr. Modica, we've discussed this already, were the $750,000 that were initially allocated for small business assistance for PPE. And we talked about that potentially PPE would become available in the region. And it was and therefore the utilization of those funds was not leveraged completely. And so one of the things that I asked for on the floor and received a unanimous vote was that those funds would then be available for other business needs and assistance. It is my understanding that more than 105 businesses have spent money to build outdoor dining facilities that now to due to this are closed. And so what I'm hoping is that we can move quickly to find relief, to be able to reimburse them for any of those costs that they spent to get ramped up to now be closed again. Mr. Keisler. I know you and I have discussed this. Are you headed in that direction yet? And if so, when can we see the funding become available?
Speaker 3: The council member yes, that was definitely part of the motion was you gave staff some direction to get the plan done that we presented to you, and that plan is coming along very, very well. We do know that there's going to be some areas that we would be able to reroute some funding. And we are definitely looking at in those categories like the PPE to do additional business assistance. So to be able to put some of that money out quickly in December, especially kind of focused on on restaurants. And so that is in the works. And I think we're going to be talking about that later tonight as part of the Economic Development and Finance Committee when that comes back.
Speaker 2: Wonderful. And then additionally, I am under the understanding that specifically related to our food plate initiative that. It won't be able to be extended completely by the deadline of December 31st. Is that still your impression?
Speaker 3: So we set out with the plan to basically deliver what the council had approved and staff had recommended through the end of December. We're also realizing that Covid's not going to magically disappear by December, that people are going to need support through the rest of the year as well. So a lot of that work will be done and by the end of December. But for certain areas like food, you know, some of the other type of service programs, we do think there's a benefit to having those go into the early part of the year. We'll have a memo for you later today or later this week on kind of what we think those opportunities are and which ones we have a mechanism to be able to use those and use dollars to extend those like in the food area. I don't think we're in any place where we're going to lose any cares ACT dollars. We want to be able to put more money into non-profits because we've gotten more than normal or higher than expected nonprofit assistance and business assistance and then extend some of those programs. So we will we've got more information on that coming in writing at the end of the week.
Speaker 2: I'm appreciative of the work that you've done with nonprofits. I did, however, realize that when you're.
Speaker 1: 25.
Speaker 5: Minutes are up.
Speaker 2: Thank you. When you did put out that RFP, it was open for three days and some nonprofits were not able to meet that deadline. So if you're planning to put additional money into nonprofits in the next 2 to 3 weeks, I would hope that you would consider reopening the same exact posting that you had before so that those nonprofits that can meet those needs are available. And I've seen those emails, so I hope that that will be considered. I know it's a lot of administration and I also know you guys are really battling through to make sure that the numbers are not only fantastic and being utilized properly, but also.
Speaker 4: Working with.
Speaker 2: Our auditor, Laura Dowd's office to make sure that those funds are appropriately spent. And I know how challenging that can be.
Speaker 3: Now, if I can just respond to that really quickly.
Speaker 1: Mr.. Briefly, briefly. I have a huge a huge speaker list and agenda. So briefly. Yes, please.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think you're referring to the Youth Services RFP. That one was opened for just a couple of days. We actually have plenty of other nonprofit programs that were really like business relief where you just apply and you can show your costs and then we reimburse those. So that's the one that we would do. It is open to just about any nonprofit that has a COVID impact charge.
Speaker 2: Great. Well, thank you for that money. Get to the businesses and the nonprofits as soon as possible. Thank you for any help. You can help with that.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. We're going to go to customer support, I don't think is spoken on the on on this item. So we'll go to Congress. You point out then will go back to a few more people that are queued up again for sure. But I'll thank you. Yeah. I have a question about the presentation. I apologize. I don't have it in front of me, but the IQ benchmark. I sure thought I said it before tonight, but I'm not sure if I do. In terms of our Long Beach number, and will that affect or is it regionally based? And before you answer just what the when we brought forward the the money to repair the elevator at the hospital last spring, that was for the opening of the hospital as needed for COVID. My philosophy was that if we save one life by doing that, the money would be well spent. So my intention, of course, is just to get hospitals open. But this is this ICU benchmark affects so many other things. So, Kelly, if you if you could just explain what that where the percentage is, if we if we got more beds right away in Long Beach, that may not affect the bottom line because it's a regional ICU number. Would that be correct?
Speaker 6: That's correct. So the the state gathers information from hospitals every day about where they are in utilization of their ICU beds, their you know, their other hospital beds, their ventilators, etc.. And so they look at what the capacity and then what the staff does, and then they add up all those beds across the regions, across the ten counties that that Dr. David listed as part of Southern California. They add up all of those beds and then they they determine the capacity. The other thing that they're also looking at as part of their calculation is the percentage of those beds that are being utilized by people experiencing COVID, you know, that have COVID. So they actually reduce the capacity by a half a percent, over 30%. So if over 30% of your ICU capacity is utilized by people, you know, with the COVID virus, then they actually reduce by a half a percent what it is. So if we were at if the you know, so if L.A. County had been at 15.5%, but then 30% of their beds, this is not the case. But I'm just demonstrating that if 30% of those beds had been at at over, if they were over 30%, then it would have actually they would we would have hit a 15% number. Right. So there's one thing. There's different things they fit in. But but the answer to your question is, yes, it's very much regional. So a number the only way that our staffing helps is to increase the capacity of the region to respond to COVID through their ICU and other beds.
Speaker 1: Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and go back now to councilman's in Dallas.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Major. I was just finishing up my previous thought and I had a quick question for city staff. Are we are we as a city tracking the side effects of the stay at home order like mental health, suicide, economic impact, school aged success and things like that?
Speaker 6: We are doing our best to attract some of that. Some of those data are difficult. You know, what we found in terms of issues around domestic violence and mental health and things is that a lot of those things are identified when people are in, you know, like in school or going to church or other places. And and because people are not gathering and because most children are not, you know, in school, some things are being missed. But we are doing our best to capture that, to capture those data. I know that or I believe that the economic development department that we are looking at the impacts, you know, economically and at our poverty rates and those sorts of things going forward. So there's a number of different variables and we're doing our best to track on the on the impacts overall, both economically and socially.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you very much. And I hope that, you know, I know that it is difficult to track that, but I also know that it's very important. So I thank you for your efforts on that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Councilman. I didn't have Councilman Price and then Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 2: Very much, Mr. Mayor. Council. I'm the new house. That's an excellent question. It's on my list of things I wanted to talk about. You know, our public health department obviously is considering not just physical health, but mental health. And there's just so much data that I've been reading regarding the mental health impacts of of of this virus. So, you know, as one of my requests tonight, it would be for our city manager to to figure out how we can make sure that we're monitoring and tracking the mental health impacts of COVID, because we haven't talked about that a lot. And what can we be doing as a city to try to offer support in those areas? I know that it's been very, very difficult for the kids, for the kids that are still at home trying. They don't have the social connections that they used to have. I can tell you as a parent of two children, I mean, they're doing fine. We're doing our best. But I think that it's very, very challenging for for the for the kids to have a completely different environment. And that's just the tip of the iceberg because there's so many other children, a much different situation. So I want to make sure that our public health department is is plugged in to this issue. And when we're thinking about and providing and offering support, perhaps looking for grant funding or looking at CARES Act funding for some mental health counseling or some one on one type activities to engage people outside of the house to get that. So thank you, Councilmembers and House for making that. And I hope the city manager hears me clearly as part of the study session that that's something that I would like to see come back. And if I have to bring that back as a separate agenda item, I'm happy to do that. So, Dr. Davis, I kind of want to go back a little bit. Dr. Davis I don't know that I've actually ever personally met you, but believe it or not, I feel like I know so much about you because since March we've received a lot of questions and inquiries from the public. And a lot of times I think the assumptions are misguided. And so I shared with people what your background is. And I tell folks that going to Stanford Medical School is no joke. It's no Long Beach State go beach. But I thought maybe we could use this opportunity to have you maybe share a little bit about your background, because I think there's a misconception out there that the people that are making the decisions regarding our health orders don't have a medical background. So could we just cover that a little bit? Sure. Thank you. So I grew up in Long Beach. First of all, I was born in the state of Washington. But since I was six years old, pretty much until I graduated from high school. Long Beach Poly, 1987, I was in Long Beach and then I went to UCLA where I actually majored in history and then went to work for a couple of years at the VA in West L.A. and then went to Stanford Medical School and then came back to Long Beach and did my residency here at Long Beach Memorial . And family.
Speaker 4: Medicine.
Speaker 2: And then did a public health fellowship where I was placed at the Long Beach Health Department and and then stayed on there for two or three years.
Speaker 4: And then went into primary care in.
Speaker 2: Los Alamitos, which serves patients from all over the area.
Speaker 4: So we had a lot a lot of Long Beach patients.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, felt the public health calling and came back to the health department in 2016.
Speaker 4: So I think, you know, I love Long Beach. I think that would be yes, I have a.
Speaker 2: Medical background and yes, I'm using that medical background to make decisions. But I'm also using.
Speaker 4: The love that I have for Long Beach, for the school.
Speaker 2: Systems, all the organizations, elected officials like. Everything that.
Speaker 4: You know, made me what.
Speaker 2: I am today and and.
Speaker 4: Has is influencing other people. So that's what goes into all the decisions that I make.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that opportunity. I muted myself. Thank you so much, Dr. Davis, for sharing that, because I think I have shared your background with people probably about 50 times in emails just in the last week, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have you share that publicly. And I want to thank you for your service. I want to ask about the data that was shown regarding restaurants. I do have a whole series of non restaurant questions that I haven't gotten to yet, but this is my last restaurant question. The data that was shared regarding restaurants was that data based on indoor dining or outdoor dining?
Speaker 6: The data they share, the CDC, they don't pass out between indoor and outdoor. It's combined. It's just any restaurant, coffee shop or bar.
Speaker 2: Okay. May I request that we dig a little bit further into that data? Because I did receive something today from a local doctor who said that he read that study and it was based on indoor dining. I don't know if that's true or not.
Speaker 6: It was based on what? Indoor dining. So the CDC study was based on just dining. So it didn't pass. It didn't differentiate between indoor or outdoor. There was recently a Stanford study that focused on indoor dining and the fact that they consider indoor dining as superspreader was how they defined what came from there. So a lot of conditions for indoor dining, but the CDC said did not pass out. They did not indicate whether indoor out there. They just said restaurants, coffee shops and bars.
Speaker 0: Council. Okay. 5 minutes is up.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. I'll come back up.
Speaker 1: Councilman. Mongo. I'm sorry. Cosmo Richardson, then councilman Mongo. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just a couple of thoughts and a question, and I certainly appreciate Dr. Davis. Introducing herself. However, she is given multiple updates weekly. When COVID hit, she did a number of halls. COVID 19. The Black Community. Latino community. AAPI community. I remember when she was announced as a city health officer, it was pretty significant. And we're neighbors were neighbors. I've seen her in my neighborhood. So she lives right here in Palm Beach. It's unfortunate that she has to continue to continue to, you know, tell folks her credentials. I think I don't remember this has ever, you know, has ever happened with anyone else. And I want I question why she has. I get this question, too. So I appreciate the question that was asked. But, you know, I think, you know, this is some questions I think are fair. And I think we need to get to questions that are fair and asking for clarity. That's a fair question. I think what I would offer I would offer some caution about raising expectations about what is or what is not possible. Some of the business groups are very clear about their their goal is to eliminate the health order. Frankly, that's all of our goal, because the enemy is the pandemic. But we should be really careful with setting unfair and unreasonable expectations about reopening honestly, about what is within the realm of possibility allows us to focus and show leadership on what is within our scope. So look, right now the state's order supersedes our local order. An honest conversation on reopening, on whatever triggers triggers reopening after the state order goes away. That's a fair question. When the ball is back in our court, let's think about some clear and transparent process to set some expectations. Rules of the road. We saw the reopening look like last time. It didn't it wasn't a great process, the process reopening, not because the health department didn't do their job, but because we had some misguided expectations and it was hard to communicate to multiple interests in the community about the reopening process. We should learn from that and set some benchmarks. I think businesses would appreciate any level of clarity, transparency and stability that we can offer. I appreciate the state's methodology benchmarking restrictions to ICU capacity, because there's something that we can justify. And I think and so my question is, between now we know how many weeks it would be we had roughly know that we have a few weeks until the state's order either is extended or goes away. We know that. So between now and then, what approaches should we be thinking about to get ahead, get a head start on the reopening conversation and that would make sense. And what benchmarks could we tie it to understanding that we it's an unpredictable virus, but we you know, we can spend these next few weeks or this next month thinking about what that what those triggers might look like. So I want to pose this to the health part. Whoever wants to answer what can we do now to make sure that the reopening process is clear, transparent, transparent and is tied to science, that very clear science. What can we do now?
Speaker 6: Right. I mean, you know, we will be tracking the data. You know, there are very clear indicators at the state level about what you can and cannot open with different tiers. We are really far into the purple tier when we look at our numbers. We have a long way to go this summer when we off of our like felt we were a little more settled then we were still in the purple tier. So the city of Long Beach has never exited the purple tier since there's been a tier system. So we're really going to be working on is how do we continue to reduce transmission across our city? We'll look we'll continue to look at the opportunities that are open in the purple tier to look at the data, the risk levels. If new data come out and new studies come out, we always pay attention to those. So we you know, it's the data. They do change. The research changes. COVID has been an ever evolving set of things. And we all started we didn't think masks were necessary, and now it's absolutely required. And then when they said masks, then we said, Oh, but it really only, you know, it's it's it it protects you from other people. And now it's very clear that it can protect you as well. So I think there are many things and we will continue to look at those data and make sure that we're we have the best information that we can at the time when the state indicates that we have sufficient capacity to be able to move forward into the purple tier. And we'll also continue to work with the state for clarification and updates on guidance. I just want you all to know we provide a lot of feedback to the state about when we think that, you know, that, that, that there's things are confusing or others and and we are on state calls somewhere but at least twice a week, if not more often, providing feedback, questions, guidance. So it is a two way street and they're doing everything they can to listen and to understand the impacts locally.
Speaker 0: Councilman. Your 5 minutes is up.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up is Councilman Mongo. And then I have actually Mongo. I have Councilwoman Pryce, and then I have Councilmember Pierce. Then I'm going to close. And then we have a long agenda ahead of us concerning mango.
Speaker 2: I'm a little taken aback. I just want to say that I guess the question about Dr. Davis all the time and I think it is a very fair question, because I think that there's a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication between our.
Speaker 4: Doctor and the.
Speaker 2: L.A. County public health doctor who has a different set of credentials. Further, a large share of my district is senior citizens who have no access to the Internet. With libraries being closed, they don't have the opportunity to watch Facebook. They don't have the opportunities. They don't go to any community meetings. They often just get their information by calling our office. And there's a lot of confusion out there, and that's one of the reasons why I specifically asked and I hope to work closely.
Speaker 4: With.
Speaker 2: Kelly to kind of talk through some of the challenges people have in conceptualizing data, data and numbers. And all of that is very I think that any questions that any resident brings forward is fair. And I just want to say that to the residents that have posed those questions to me. Councilman Price, thank you for asking, because they do get to watch Channel three and see these council meetings, even if they're just with me most of the time. And so I think it's an important opportunity. And thank you for being so gracious about it, Dr. Davis, because it is important for the residents to see your your credentials and the fact that you live in our city and that you care about our city. So there were rumors that you didn't live in the state of California, and that was confusing because they didn't know who you were as compared to anyone else. And so I just want to thank you for for doing that. As elected officials, we're usually the ones that are in the spotlight and receive those types of questions about ourselves. But you are an administrator who is now really being put up to the same kind of scrutiny that an elected official is. And that same level.
Speaker 4: Of.
Speaker 2: Transparency is kind of being brought to the forefront. So with that, I appreciate you and.
Speaker 4: What you've done.
Speaker 2: To follow up on another question that we had, when can we see the possibility of community hospital opening, even if it is a small number of beds like councilmember supervisor said, one additional bed could save a life.
Speaker 6: Okay. Yeah. So community hospital has been approved through Ashburn and they're going through there. They have been through a number of inspections through CDP. So I guess there are a number that you have to go through. And so they are continuing to work with the state to get through the next range and their goal is to be able to open as soon as possible given that process. But the process has been moving forward. They are further along than they have been at any other point in time in terms of the ability to open.
Speaker 3: And we're pushing hard on that. If there's ever a time to open a hospital and they can approve it, it's now so and the team wants to get going. So that's a top priority.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Monica. And then what about our cooperation with other hospitals that have expanded capacity with physical beds, but maybe they don't have.
Speaker 4: The.
Speaker 2: Staffing? Is there is there any options for us as a city to support that?
Speaker 6: So the city is working very closely with, uh, with the region in terms of staffing overall. We think locally our staffing is also at capacity. Um, so the goal is to work with the state is trying to identify additional resources that can support regions who have the highest levels of impact on their ICU. Um, and then there are a number of staffing agencies and others that people are tapping into to work to, you know, to be able to identify that the staffing needs to be able to support, uh, additional beds.
Speaker 2: Anecdotally, we hear that every single year during flu season our hospitals are full and we need additional beds and we can't allow a hospital to close. Whether it was King Medical Center in 2007 or eight, or whether it was a community hospital. What was the average daily ICU occupancy of hospitals in 2019? And will that be added to the dashboard as was requested? I mean, my agenda item is more generic, but specifically it would be that email that I sent requesting that level of data.
Speaker 6: I don't currently have those data. The data that we receive that we're currently basing on comes to us each day from the state that, as far as I'm aware, that it started when the pandemic began. But I can look to see if those data you know, we can find those data from another source.
Speaker 2: We were hearing. It would be the Association of hospitals. There were times where, um, during the King closure, hospitals came to the diocese and provided testimony about what their occupancy rates were and how long paramedics and or ambulances were holding the wall to admit someone to an ICU bed. And so I'm not saying that it's not serious. It is very serious. And people's lives in 2008 and 2009 and 2010, those were lives that were in critical condition or lost because they did not have the access. And we don't want to be in that position. But as a region we have been here before is the story that we heard. It doesn't mean that it's true. And so I'd really like to see the data added to the dashboard so that people can have that comparison, so it at least can provide the context that people need to be able to do a better job of participating in and understanding the data.
Speaker 3: Councilman, you're 10 minutes left.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up is Councilmember Price.
Speaker 2: Mr. Mayor. So a couple of questions. So, you know, just to be clear, I really hope that these study sessions allow us the opportunity to ask the questions that we feel we need to ask, that we promised our community that we would ask. And Councilman Richardson, you know, while I appreciate you providing your opinion on what's a fair question and what's not a fair question, you know, I appreciate all of your questions and I'm not going to provide any judgment on them. I really would hope that this would be an opportunity that we can all ask our questions. My question for Dr. Davis was, was basically because some people may not have seen her in the health briefings and may not have known her background. And I just wanted publicly for her to share that. I thought that it was important because my understanding is that Dr. Ferrer does not have the same medical background. And one of the things that I've touted to people is that Dr. Davis does have a medical background. And certainly I was aware of it, as I as I indicated, because I have shared that with people a lot. I said about 50 times in the last week, so I was certainly aware of it. I just wanted to highlight her amazing credentials for the public. I wasn't trying to make her prove herself or anything. I was I was just asking a question and I just would ask that you please allow us to ask questions that we we think we need to without judgment. There was certainly no ill intent. I I'm so amazed and proud of her credentials and her work on our team. So thank you. And I hope that Dr. Davis took it in that way. In regards to the question about the data that we've been storing on our dashboard, positivity rates is something that we've been talking about a lot. And one of the questions I get a lot and again, you know, maybe this is covered in the health briefings and things. So I don't mean to disrespect anyone, but it's a question that comes up a lot. Are the positivity rates any less valuable to us as data if we're doing more tests? So that's kind of a conversation that people have. A lot is of course, the rates are going to be higher. We're doing more tests. Can someone talk about that a little bit from a scientific standpoint?
Speaker 6: You're asking if there are any less valuable. I mean, so we look at a number of different you know, we look at a number of different numbers. So the positivity rate is taken of all those test results that we get. So generally, if you if your positivity rate is low and so if you test a bunch of people, your positivity rate is low, it indicates that there is less community spread. If you test a bunch of people and your positivity rate goes up, it means there is more community spread. So that's really you know, that's really what we're looking at. So if you you know, we've always done a lot of testing in the city of Long Beach. We've exceeded the requirements pretty much, you know, since we get we had our testing stood up and our positivity rates, they were higher for a while and they went down to 2.9. So that indicated to us that the community spread was less than our it. It is going up. So that's what it is. That's why I was checking with Dr. Davis if she wants to add to that.
Speaker 2: No. I mean, what you're saying makes sense. And then sometimes what'll happen is if you're testing a lot of people, the positivity rate might artificially go down because you're you're testing so many more people. But or if you're testing fewer people than your positivity rate might be a little bit higher.
Speaker 4: Like if more people are.
Speaker 2: Testing who are asymptomatic, say, for instance. So it kind of depends on the group that you're testing. But what we know is that.
Speaker 4: You can't.
Speaker 2: We can't explain the increase in our positivity rate solely.
Speaker 4: By the increase in testing. Like they're just not tracking that way. Like it's definitely there is an increase of, of infection in the community.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you for answering that. I know I get a lot of questions about that, that somehow our data is not as valid or as concerning because we're testing so many people. And I'm hearing from you that that's not true. Right. And actually, you know, having 10% of 100,000 people tested is more concerning than 10%.
Speaker 4: Of ten people tested, right? Oh, it does. It does give us that. There are more people in Long Beach who are infected.
Speaker 2: Is it fair to say then that those numbers are kind of proportional? The positivity rates are proportional to the number of tests that we're doing. They can be, and then they can also have to do with who's getting tested. So if you're testing everybody in a high risk group, then.
Speaker 4: You're going to have a higher positivity rate.
Speaker 2: But what we're seeing is that the proportions aren't tracking. So we're seeing that it is actually more infection. So there is people look at that to see like, oh.
Speaker 4: Are you getting.
Speaker 2: More positives because of either who we are testing or how.
Speaker 4: Many people you're testing? And so we're seeing that that isn't the case right now. Like it is a little more.
Speaker 2: In terms of the data that we're sharing on our dashboard that's available to the public. Are we listing age data on there?
Speaker 6: We are the the for the front facing dashboard. Um does have percent of cases by age group. And so that is on the very front page of something that it's updated every day except for Sundays.
Speaker 1: Councilman your of.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. This is Councilmember Pearce. The mayor had said I was going to be next.
Speaker 1: You're up. Sorry about that.
Speaker 2: That's okay. I had a couple of comments earlier, but now I just I think the only question I have is hold me back up. I want to say again, thank you to our health department and the experts. And I know that we all get a lot of questions from different people and that often some of these questions might not be. Rooted in the the best goal of trying to figure out our health order and how we reduce Cogan and often can be a distraction. So I, I had more poignant comments earlier but I don't want to to rambled too long. So I would like to just add one question to staff. Given that the studies have shown that indoor dining is a superspreader, what we saw happened when the weather got cold was a bunch of tents go up and tents with heaters inside. Do we think that those are going to be permitted when the health order changes? And is there any proof that those are similar to indoor dining?
Speaker 6: So the way the health order is defined is that they you can have a tent, but three sides must be up. So people are putting up the tents without understanding the health order. That was clarified in the health order. So it is it is required that if you are putting up a tent, you can put up some heaters in there, but you cannot you have to have three sides up, so only one side can be down.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman Mango.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I think it's also important I know that one of the L.A. County medical directors and he's also an ER doctor, talked about how many studies have been.
Speaker 4: Done on COVID.
Speaker 2: And how much the data has even changed because of the amount of time that's passed even since March and the multiplying effect. And so I know that we mentioned kind of the CDC study related to dining, which didn't differentiate indoor or outdoor dining. But I think it was also important that there were other components of it that said, did you go to a grocery store? Did you other things. And those were not eliminated as components or factors. I think that we need to work hard to use the most reliable data. I know that some cities have been tracking things more closely. And so I would just advocate for us to do our own tracking as well, related to restaurants and related to fitness facilities and related to personal care. I don't know what additional resources the Health Department may need to make that a possibility, but localizing that data and figuring out our numbers and what that looks like is important. And when we go back to the purple. Red and all of those colors. Again, we talk about Long Beach numbers and if we closed indoor dining or outdoor dining or personal care gyms, but Orange County does not. People in our neighborhood work in Orange County, at those restaurants, at those gyms, at all of those things. And so our numbers and their numbers are just so tied together. And so I think that we have to just be.
Speaker 4: Mindful of what.
Speaker 2: Mary brought up, which I think is probably the best question of the night, which is the other health implications that we're talking about, the teen suicides and the and the devastation of families that comes from poverty and the wage gap and the wealth gap that's being created by this pandemic. And so I would just say that when I look at the charts that you had for us on the chart, number 14 really talks about that. The spread is between the ages of 25 and 49. I think that we could even break it down more and then really target the specifics in those areas of where those are coming from and some in-depth interviews with individuals and try to restrict that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, what my God mom said is I'm high risk and I have cancer. I'm going to stay home. And if everybody else and she lives in Orange County and if everybody else goes out, then I'm still going to stay home and I'm going to be safe. And so people always do have that option. And our primary responsibility as a city and as a health department is to ensure that there is a safety net, should someone make a bad decision and get to a place where they overexpose themselves more often and and what you have to the point where they're in the hospital, that we have a bed available for them. And I know we don't run the health care hospital system in Long Beach like L.A. County does, but it's our responsibility to work hand in hand with those hospitals and make sure that beds are available so that the rest of the decisions can be made by families of what's best for their kids. And people can be making decisions about what's best for their families. And so thank you again to Dr. Davis for the presentation, and thank you, city manager, for taking the time. And thank you to our economic development department. Head for the transitions he's going to make to make sure to be responsive. And then I would just ask that as more funds become available, I know we talk about moving money around and that staff have the authority within programs to do that. But I would just say that I hear the biggest need being direct help to people. And I talked to someone today who said that they still haven't gotten their EDI check and they've been off work since May. And so if there's a way or a pot of money that becomes available because of underutilization of funds by program, I would just ask that we have an inventory of small businesses while we do businesses and really target Long Beach workers. And so I think that even before Garcetti mentioned this.
Speaker 4: I, I talked about it with Mr..
Speaker 2: Keisler and Mr. Modica and the Mayor. I would like to see that Long Beach businesses.
Speaker 4: Be able to get on the Zoom portal.
Speaker 2: Enter all the names of employees that worked for them in February and what their pay was, and those employees pay in November. And anyone who has received a 50% loss of wage or whatever that cutoff is that we as a city determined to.
Speaker 4: Be the appropriate way to figure out.
Speaker 2: How to determine the money. We then say, okay, you are now in a lottery to receive a $400 check, a $300 check, and that would be really meaningful to workers laid off in every industry. And then because we wouldn't have to go through the process that we're going through now with lines and all the complexities of getting money into workers hands. You know, we could give that money to the business owner to write a direct check to the employee right away. And I see that as being one of the best ways for people to.
Speaker 4: See that money.
Speaker 2: Directly from the city of Long Beach. So I look forward to finding ways to find that money in this CARES Act funding or other funding that becomes available.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Price.
Speaker 2: Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I wanted to ask the city manager a question. What's the feasibility? I know we had an economic kind of recovery. I don't know what we called them. A task force or committee. But what's the feasibility of us having a citizen task force of maybe business owners, health officials and community leaders that could be consulted or involved in the discussion when we're going to do a health order. So, you know, assuming we get out of the current regional restriction phase that we're in now, we go back to the purple tier. If there are restrictions within the purple tier that L.A. County, let's say, adopts. What's the feasibility of us having a citizen advisory committee who could at least maybe share with the health officials some of the impacts that those decisions might have so that they can weigh that in the totality when they're making the health decisions? Is that possible?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think that would be somewhat difficult as really we have our health officer who then makes those decisions and some of these have been going pretty quick. I don't mind having if anyone wants to send us information and we get a lot of that we can. I do want to be honest, the the level of strain and stress right now on the team just to support what we're doing is is very high. So I can noodle that a little bit more. But ultimately the health officer needs to be able to respond pretty quickly to what we're seeing in terms of health risk.
Speaker 2: Okay. And I understand that. And I think that's all that I'm asking you to do is maybe noodle it, because there are times like a few minutes ago we talked about when L.A. County decided to ban indoor dining. That's something they had been talking about for a few days. So that might be a situation where we can pull together resources to talk about, you know, from just from business owners, members of the community, just so that we can consider all impacts before making a decision, because there may be opportunities to make modifications to whatever activity is being considered high risk that would mitigate the risk in a way that the health official feels satisfied with, but not necessarily talking about in-person dining. But, you know, let's say we're talking about playgrounds or whatever. I'm just saying we should be open to the possibility that there may be specific procedures involved with a particular activity that is considered dangerous, that can be modified in order to allow for it to be less risky.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think we take that input in a number of different ways. Just last week, Kelly, myself and the mayor met with the with the Long Beach Restaurant Association, and they shared some good ideas on, you know, can we you know, if if and when we're able to open up again, you know, what could that look like? Could it be households only small or top sized people keep masks on. So I think there is value for hearing some input from the industry itself. Ultimately, the health officer has to make some of those, you know, those very tough decisions. But input comes in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. I just would like to see us think about how we can maybe engage the community and business owners a little bit more on that. In terms of our being a health jurisdiction, I know that in the past we've been told that we're going to be in the tier of our county. Can you maybe, Mr. Mote, economists up talk about, you know, what efforts have we made to be considered differently so that we're our own health jurisdiction? Is there still an opportunity for us to make application.
Speaker 0: To be considered.
Speaker 2: Differently, or is that opportunity for closed?
Speaker 6: So the state determined that we would move as counties primarily because because there's so much overlap. People do a lot of commuting back and forth and that they wanted to make sure that a regional level. So there are three state, you know, three local health jurisdictions in the state and each was determined to be with their counties . So we can, you know, so the other thing is we have never our data have never gotten any better than the counties in terms of tiers. So at this point, it wouldn't have made a difference in terms of our ability to move from a tier because our data never indicated we could move either. I think we had one day where we crossed over that would have been a possibility. And then we went right back to purple. So, you know, so pretty much because of it's the region, that's what it looks like. And then we can at a local level look at our data. And we have looked at our data here and there, you know, along the way and said, you know, we're going to go a little more restrictive than L.A. County, which we have done in some cases, or less restrictive. So that's that's where it currently stands.
Speaker 2: Okay. And in terms of I know that recently the big decision was made that, you know, Pasadena did their own thing. And I know that we I've talked with you must be off line for email about why why they did something different than we did with in response to in-person dining. When we come out of this regional restriction phase, do you anticipate that we would be working more with Pasadena or do you anticipate that we'll have continued maybe departures from following the same policies? Do you now?
Speaker 6: We do work closely with Pasadena. Pasadena also works closely with L.A. County. In the case of the dining, Pasadena as case rate was half of ours and half of L.A. County's. So they chose not to move yet because their data hadn't hit the 40 benchmark and ours was very close to it. So we chose at that point to do that. But generally, Pasadena and the city of Long Beach worked very closely with L.A. County. We spent a lot of time on the phone together, looking at it, looking at the data, having conversations, working on the impacts, all of that.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman okay. 5 minutes is up. Okay.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Modica. You made a comment earlier, and you know that I do my best to be as honest and genuine with you, and I receive a lot of feedback from the community and that feedback I bring to you as soon as possible. I've always felt that there is a good barrier of us giving you information and then you deciding how and when and what goes to Dr. Davis. I'm not clear on what that is or isn't, but I do feel like there are times when I have made comments that were brought to me by the community that you kind of agreed with that would be a way to stop the spread. For example, you specifically discussed that there were other things considered with outdoor dining instead of closing it completely, but either limiting that by households or down to only groups of four. But I mean, you talk about how fast the the data needs to get to you. I mean, it was hours later. And I think that we as a city need to feel comfortable that if we find an alternative. Being able to pump the brake and go back because I don't know that. That. The discussions that we've had to get us there are really taking in that input of the community and these alternatives, I mean. I just kind of agree with what Councilman Price said about taking that input, because as much as we respect and admire doctors, we're out in the world living each day and we're seeing what that impact is and we're seeing people. And then I want to echo what Councilman Price said, and I know I've been saying it to you since probably March 6th. We have our own health department. It is a important and costly way that we have chosen to do business. And I think we need to separate, even if our numbers are worse, even if our numbers are worse, let it be to us to make those decisions and have our own destiny in our hands and not be lumped in. Because when we go back to the tiers of Orange County's One Direction and our numbers are closer with theirs, we're going to be in the same spot. And whether or not Manhattan Beach now has outdoor dining. I have a neighbor who told me she drove all the way to Pasadena to go outdoor dining. I mean, these numbers are still going to be reflective because people are going to do what people want to do because they believe in the freedom of choice that they have here and they know the risk. She's a nurse and she's doing that, but she.
Speaker 4: Believes that.
Speaker 2: She knows the spread and that she's going to be fine. And so. Those are her choices. And I don't know what to say other than.
Speaker 4: There's I mean.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of points have been made. I appreciate all of you. I would like to know in closing, Dr. Davis, what is your opinion of the judge's order related to outdoor restaurants? And do you believe that you have additional dining data to support closing outdoor dining? If we go back to the tiered system.
Speaker 4: As the general requested.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think it's really difficult to speak now about what we'll do then. It's just been really, really hard in this entire pandemic.
Speaker 4: To project.
Speaker 2: Because we just like, I never thought we would be here. I never thought we would be in a point where we'd be surging this quickly, this fast.
Speaker 4: And we haven't even gotten to Christmas.
Speaker 2: Like, this.
Speaker 4: Is unbelievable, honestly.
Speaker 2: And so we're trying to get through this. And then, you know, really, I mean.
Speaker 4: Taking all of the the impacts and the, you know.
Speaker 2: Really trying to find the best way that we protect the public's health while also.
Speaker 4: Protecting our economy. I mean, that's kind of what we've been doing this entire time. And it's been very difficult. And I know that it's been.
Speaker 1: Difficult for our.
Speaker 2: Team members as well. So, I mean, you know, so I really can't tell you.
Speaker 4: Now, but I know that we will be doing, you know, the best we can to have the best economy and keeping.
Speaker 2: People as safe as possible. Well, I have confidence in you that we should be separate and you should make our decisions and that you have the excellent qualifications. And so. Mr. Modica. Would you think that we need to, as a council, kind of give you that feedback? Because I don't know how my colleagues stand on that issue and I know that we'd have to probably either agenda is it unless you think.
Speaker 4: This is appropriate to.
Speaker 2: The component of this item.
Speaker 3: So I think you as a council have that ability to tell us, you know, kind of what you want our you know, our direction to be to the governor and stuff. I do feel like we've got a good partnership right now with L.A. County, with Pasadena, with us. We have made decisions throughout this pandemic where they have differed in some areas. So we do have that ability. We are still governed by the state. So it's a little bit of a theoretical discussion right now because at least for the near term, we're all going to be under this regional approach. And honestly, I do think it's a better approach to not have a Long Beach thing and doing something different than a Pasadena, than a L.A. county and an Orange County. We are now all in it together as Southern California. There's one set of rules that we all have to abide by. And and I think you heard Dr. Davis say that we didn't we didn't want to be here and go this quick. That's fast. And so part of how the team made that decision with restaurants and others is we saw us heading off a cliff that we were going to be fairly soon in a place where ICU beds are not available. And my end of my comments will be that. And there's a great quote by a Santa Clara health official who said, you can't pull the emergency brake after you've already driven off the cliff. And so, you know, that is really, I think, where in the minds of the health officers were how to stop the spread so that we didn't have a place where we're running out of capacity. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman. Your 5 minutes is up.
Speaker 1: If you're finishing a question, go ahead.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's my last question. I appreciate your your comment regarding pulling the emergency brake. However, we changed the rules on them because we didn't say ever. If we had this number of ICU beds, then we're going to pull the brake. And so to all of those restaurants that had thousands of dollars in losses of food to spoilage and had to make immediate layoffs to people who are now laid off before Christmas and the impacts to those families that might have been different had they had one additional weekend to be open to me. What I'd heard is that those workers, that's an additional ability to buy groceries for a week. And so that to me is also not really fair in changing the rules. If ICU beds get to whatever percentage in the future, we're going back. That's great. But the challenge continues to be this is the data that's important to the positivity rates. Okay, now the data that's important is that for now, the data that's important is ventilators. Oh, we didn't have a surge. Okay, now that. So I would just say that I'm giving people five days notice. I don't know what those numbers are, but we have to come up with something that's more equitable and fair because families are having a hard time adjusting and paying their bills and all of those things. And at least if you gave someone notice, they'd have a few days to apply for unemployment and things like that. So thank you for everyone and all that you're doing and let's hope that the numbers drop pretty dramatically and we don't have to have this discussion or the vaccine is here and that would be even better. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And Councilwoman Mongo, you're you're sitting there making the comments that you're making. Just so you know, you have one Long Beach resident who's sitting across the table from me saying, yes, yes. Because as a business owner, that the notice absolutely is a very, very important, critical point. And I know we can't always give notice, but, you know, you've got you've got one business owner in this house who seems to agree very loudly that you're spot on with that. And I would hope that we're mindful of that because the impacts are real. I mean, they're just real. We just paid for our business, for example, $6,000 for flood insurance and the business businesses closed. Right. So these are just expenses and that's just nothing compared to the restaurants. But it's just these are real considerations. I do want to talk about the ICU bed capacity that Councilman Melgar was talking about a moment ago. When we talk about Long Beach area hospitals. What hospitals are we talking about?
Speaker 6: We're talking about Memorial St Mary's Miller Children's and Children and Families. They have a number of adult beds as well. And Los Alamitos and Lakewood Regional and College.
Speaker 2: Okay. And do we have do we happen to know what the total number of ICU beds we have in the Long Beach area hospital systems is?
Speaker 5: Videos on the back after a quick.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So we have 1335 total. It's 200 and something.
Speaker 2: On. Okay. And that. So 200 plus and that's ICU.
Speaker 6: Correct. Yeah. So the slide there was demonstrated. So what we have is sorry, we have 182 adult ICU beds, of which 74% of those are currently being utilized in the in the city of Long Beach. And we have 1211 adult non ICU beds, over 62% are being utilized.
Speaker 2: Did you say 74% of the ICU beds are currently being utilized.
Speaker 6: In the city? For a regional hospitals, it was up to 84%, now 82% a couple days ago. It's dropped slightly, but we're right now we're at 74%.
Speaker 2: Okay. And I know that I heard some information that I read in the press about possible options of using other facilities for medical treatment. Where are we on that? Like the convention center or other facilities that might be able to accommodate space wise.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So and so we do work as a region around all of that as well. And so the state is, is the next step is to open the Fairview Alternative Care site, which would be a way to decompress if the region gets to the point where they don't have enough ICU capacity. And then, you know, if we need to get to another alternative care site, we do have we do have bed capacity. We do not currently have staffing capacity for that. So we would we are sort of currently investigating that. We are you know, we are also hoping that, you know, community hospital becomes an option.
Speaker 2: Okay. That's what I was going to ask you about. It is the fact that we have the infrastructure there in terms of space. Does that make it a feasible alternative?
Speaker 6: Which community hospital.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 6: And yeah. So, I mean, they have to open they have to be officially opened because they can't open as a hospital. Otherwise we do. We could set up some beds either at Long Beach Community College or at the Convention Center, but we wouldn't be able to operate as ICU from there. It's really it's a it's a relief valve for hospitals for people to stay, but it wouldn't be for those who generally are those are ICU or COVID. It would be opening up other capacities.
Speaker 2: Would Fairview be a site where ICU bed ICU patients could be held?
Speaker 6: Um, enjoyed it. I don't I don't know that answer. I will have to get back to you on that. I do know it's an alternative care site. I am not sure if it's just taking overflow from other beds of hospitals or whether they will take ICU.
Speaker 2: Okay. All right. I appreciate that. Do we have any idea or how often are we tracking whether or not the state home? I mean, when will we know if these restrictions are working in terms of slowing the spread?
Speaker 6: Well, certainly. Well, certainly we would look at the ICU capacity. We would know they'll be paying attention, you know, within three weeks. So we are still in the space of. Right. So we. The the. The reporting of the cases. You know, people sort of begin to notice symptoms sort of 5 to 6 days in and they get tested and things. So it's it's ten it's ten days to two weeks out before the Thanksgiving surge. So we're right now, you know, we've had a ton of cases coming and we believe that it's due to, you know, primarily due to Thanksgiving and people gathering there. And then from that space, what we'll be looking for is do those cases once we get past that two weeks, do they start to reduce and then do we have ICU capacity, um, going forward? Um, I do, I do now know about this the Fairview thank you to my team is overflow. It is not an ICU facility. It's a freeing up of bed.
Speaker 2: Okay. Got it. I think 5.
Speaker 1: Minutes are up. She's the last person. So we'll let her continue and finish up because my prayers. Go ahead.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll try to be quick in terms of the trends that we're seeing now with the Thanksgiving numbers. I'm assuming that we're going to expect to see the same around Christmas or the holidays.
Speaker 6: We are concerned that that's the case.
Speaker 2: What are we doing proactively to message to the community, to remind them, Mummy, I don't know how many people got the Amber Alert today. I imagine we all did. Is there more of that type of notification and warning protocols if that are planned? Is there anything planned specifically by the city like maybe through alert Long Beach?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we do. We do send out alert Long Beach. Every time the order is is up. We do we send out a lot of information through logic to different communities, through press releases and outreach. We're also working with community nonprofit organizations, you know, with your council offices and others, too, to really start to, you know, continue to get out the information about the need to not gather. You know, we did you know, there's a large press on information about please, please, please don't get together with extended family over Thanksgiving. We'll be doing the similar type of things. Plus, like alternative fun things you can do over the holidays that don't require you to get together.
Speaker 2: Is our alert language only going out when we have a health order or can we proactively send that out just as a as a reminder to people?
Speaker 6: We can use it to send it as a reminder.
Speaker 2: I would ask the city manager to consider that maybe leading into the holidays, because I think that that might be good, just kind of reinforces the importance for people. Certainly. I want to thank you. I wanted to ask about vaccines. I know we didn't talk a lot about that, but we're getting a lot of questions. I'm getting tons of emails at the council office regarding the vaccine when we think it will be available and the rollout. Is there anyone that can speak to that a little bit? I know there's probably a lot we don't know, but what do we know at this point?
Speaker 6: Yes, our team is in heavy planning. We are bringing forward additional information a little bit later this week. But there, you know, the the, um, across the country they are looking at that, that Pfizer is looking to ship a very small they don't have huge capacity, but a very small amount going out sometime within the next couple of weeks and that, you know, the different jurisdictions will be receiving. So that's where that's where it is right now. But we'll be sharing more coming up.
Speaker 2: Do we know what the rollout is going to be? I know the governor talked about it in his briefing regarding health care professionals being the first in the series of categories of people, workers to get them. Do we know any rollout plan beyond that?
Speaker 6: There are CDC tiers that are laid out and we as well as the governor, everybody is aligning along those tiers. Health care workers are the first on that tier.
Speaker 2: And the determination of who will get the vaccine first, will that be made by state order or local county order or city order?
Speaker 6: Made by the tiers in the vaccine planning that are going through. So we are we are working closely with the state as well that that is how that is determined, but it's determined locally.
Speaker 2: Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for allowing me to ask my questions. Thank you to the staff for your excellent work and and for your grace and patience in allowing us to ask the questions that we needed to. Tonight. I really appreciate your efforts. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I got it. I think Councilman Mongo, did you come back up? I think you have one of the more questions.
Speaker 2: Well, one last question. Do we have any hospitals currently on Long Beach on diversion?
Speaker 6: I do not believe so.
Speaker 2: Okay. And just as a reminder, we were on we had hospitals on diversion all the time in 2019. And so I just want to better understand what that looks like and what we're expecting as we look at the percentage and I guess we're expecting that to virgin happen. I know that there are many hospitals in L.A. County that are on diversion and that's probably contributing to the regional rate.
Speaker 4: Of.
Speaker 2: Under 15%, even though we're over 15% for ourselves. So just something for us to think about when we talk about. I hear a lot of we got to use the data, we got to use the data, we got to use the data. But both sides are looking at different sets of data. I just received a memorandum from someone in L.A. County related to the number of hospitals that are going on diversion. And so I thought, oh, wow, it's probably a pertinent question to find out how many of our hospitals are on diversion. Will we be adding number of times on diversion to our our chart, if that's something that we're thinking about and really an indicator of of the panic that we should not panic, the concern that we should have we should.
Speaker 4: Maybe look into that.
Speaker 2: Adding that to the dashboard. Thank you. That's my last question.
Speaker 1: Their response to that or.
Speaker 3: Oh, so I you want to add that again, we are in a region. So I think Stacy Burton or Councilmember Mungo brings up a good point. So we do have some information coming out from the that we saw in the paper today that says 74% of hospitals on Monday were on diversion status for advanced life support in the county of Los Angeles. So they're down to about 24 ICU beds for the counties, for public hospitals. So while we're not there yet, we know that a lot of our partners are. And when they divert, they go to other places so we can. And we'll talk more in the next item about Dashboard. We do like putting up data. We have actually a lot of data and a lot more than other health jurisdictions. At some point there is a limit to how much staff we can have to put every single that data on there. I think we understand the request to really look at the most critical things and and try to get those up and get those updated.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Modica. That concludes all the Council question. Comments. I'm going to close just by thanking all of the staff for this great presentation. A lot of great questions and conversation just to is to Kelly and to Dr. Davis to the health team. I just want you guys to know how supported you are. You guys are doing a phenomenal job under immense pressure and are guiding us through what is probably the largest challenge the city has ever faced. And I just want to thank you, particularly Dr. Davis. I know that you you are an incredible leader. And I just want to thank you and make sure that you know how supported that you are. I know I've told that to you personally. I want to make sure I also say it publicly. We are we are lucky beyond words to have someone of your integrity and character leading our public health efforts in our city. And I just want to continue to thank you and then as we close.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And as we close, I just want to also just just center again why what we're here about. I know there's been a lot of questions about a lot of different topics tonight. To me, the number that matters the most is the 287 Long Beach lives that we've lost. And and that, to me, is always the center of these conversations. And to those families, many of whom I've had have the have had the great honor to get to know and talk to and communicate with. Just want them to know that we have their back, that we love them, we support them, and we'll do everything we can to ensure that more people don't have to go through what they're going through right now. And so thank you. We have a motion to receive and file and we'll take a roll call on that vote. And the second on that with Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 0: District one. I District two. I. District three.
Speaker 2: I.
Speaker 0: District four.
Speaker 1: I.
Speaker 0: District five. I. District six. District seven.
Speaker 1: By.
Speaker 0: District eight.
Speaker 1: I.
Speaker 0: District nine. I motion carries.
Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. We do have a couple of cogat items, but because of the situation when when long, I want to make sure that we don't keep the public comment period and those folks are waiting any more. So I want to make sure that let's go to the public comment or the public comment and then we'll go back to recovery items and then the rest of the agenda. So we can do go through item 12, please. Madam Clerk. That would be great. The first speaker is Dave Shukla. And this is open public comment, correct, Mr. Kirk?
Recommendation to conduct a Study Session to receive and file an update on COVID-19 data and recent Health Order.