Orange County supervisors on Tuesday will review a protocol county officials are establishing to respond to an outbreak of COVID-19.
The supervisors — at an emergency meeting held last week — directed staff to draw up a plan for responding in case there is a widespread outbreak of the coronavirus. There has been one confirmed case of COVID-19 in Orange County and the man who contracted it has recovered fully.
Orange County Health Care Agency officials announced last Tuesday two more people have tested positive for COVID-19, but they are waiting for federal test results to confirm the diagnoses.
According to the Orange County Health Care Agency, the cases are a man in his 60s and a woman in her 30s who had recently traveled to countries with widespread outbreaks.
“We have some test kits on hand, but do we have enough test kits for everyone? No,” said Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do, the board’s vice chairman.
Federal authorities announced Monday that private laboratories also will be equipped with test kits, so more people can be checked.
“That’s the hope,” Do said. “How likely it is, we don’t know. We may know as early as late this week, but there’s no guarantee. We’ll know for sure whether private vendors can step up and do this.”
Health Care Agency Director Richard Sanchez is expected to brief the county board on Tuesday on the “protocol set up in place to train our health workers, first responders in case there is widespread infection,” Do said.
“Ideally, we’ll have a checklist and work off that checklist with no guessing involved,” Do said. “Ideally that should be the case, but we know from other jurisdictions that when the proverbial stuff hits the fan they’re scrambling anyway. We want to prevent that.”
Health Care Agency officials will also hold a “virtual town hall” from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday. Residents may call 855-756-7520, ext. 56750# to join the call. More information can be obtained by emailing ceocom@ocgov.com.