If this slow testing ramp is responsible for slowing the relaxation of Santa Clara County's Shelter in Place orders, then the Health Department needs to prove that government can be responsive to its citizens and get testing rapidly ramped-up to where anyone can walk in and get tested, symptoms or not. Other Californai Counties have done it already. Why can't we? Kudos to the County Supervisors who are putting pressure on the Department to get this done so that we can return to work and get out of our homes.

"[...]the county has seen a significant drop in the number of positive cases of coronavirus. The county now has about a 1% positivity rate in most areas[...]" So 99% of people are not impacted? That seems like a pretty good motivation to end the lockdown completely.

“ "This virus is a sneaky virus. Once it takes off in a community, it's very challenging to put it back in the bottle."”
More scare tactics from Cody. I am surprised she didn’t default to her usual talking points- “ we are in the same position that we are in in March”, “there is no herd immunity or vaccine”.

We are not in the same position we are in in March. We know so much more about the virus:
- most people are asymptomatic
- the virus is spread mainly when you have prolonged exposure to large groups and are not wearing a mask
-getting the virus from a surface is very rare

Perhaps the virus is seasonal and will dissipate in the summer. We should not count on that.

There can not be herd immunity when everyone is locked up at home. Does Cody understand how herd immunity is obtained.

We have reached the point where we need to start slowly opening the county (not Cody’s begrudging glacial slow). We are are not looking to do what Texas and Georgia did.
At that point people will need to decide what they are comfortable doing and going to. I do not see a large rush of people filling up,stores and malls.
We need to make sure that we practice social distancing and wear masks.

What is Cody’s plan? To stay locked up until a vaccine is available? The virus is still around and may be around forever?

People and businesses are suffering extreme devastating effects. Even if we slowly open it will take a long to recover. What about the mental toll? Does Cody even care?
Perhaps Cody can show some empathy for the residents of the county instead of demanding that we stay her prisoners for who knows how long.

The supervisors need to step up and starting looking at what is best for the residents

It would be great if anyone who wanted to be tested could pay for testing
Is this possible now?

Rodger, anyone can get tested now, for free, symptoms or not. The problem is that the County Health Department is not being transparent about testing availability.

The web site for testing is awful, in some cases implying that you have to be referred by a doctor to get a test. It's untrue, there are plenty of testing locations that are both free and that don't require any referral. In fact, the County has more capacity than people willing to be tested, it's just poor communications on their part.

Go to Web Link and there are no qualifications to get a test.

Also Web Link offers tests to everyone, don't worry about all the questions they ask, they will test asymptomatic individuals. I got tested here, it was painless.

Because there were very strict standards for Who could be tested, citizens now believe that they aren’t eligible for county testing, even though Everyone is encouraged to go get tested now. The County needs to be more aggressive in letting people know that everyone is welcome and strongly encouraged to come get tested 1x/month, no matter lack of symptoms, no matter how great their health insurance is, and no matter how unexposed to the public they may be.

Please pass it on!