COVID-19 Updates from Town Hall
Updated on January 11th, this flyer has information on the plan for who gets vaccinated when, with the current phase (1A) having people ages 65+ vaccinated along with the other tiers. Photo Courtesy of: OC Health Care Agency
On January 7th, a virtual town hall meeting on Zoom took place regarding the information on the pandemic in Santa Ana.
The virtual town hall was primarily focused on two doctors: Frank Zaldivar, and Sarah Lopez. Most of the discussion was conducted following a PowerPoint presentation regarding the coronavirus.
According to the doctors, heart disease used to be the #1 killer in the United States, but Covid-18 recently passed it. Both Dr. Lopez and Dr. Zaldivar highly recommended getting the vaccine to protect yourself and the community in order to achieve herd immunity, which lessens the spread of the virus as a whole.
The vaccine will be delivered to people based on three tiers of importance, over a span of a couple of months. The first people receiving the vaccine will be people in critical conditions, high-risk individuals, and healthcare workers; the second phase of people are workers and moderate-risk individuals; the third phase consists of everyone else, who should be able to get the virus during the summer.
“If we can get between 75-80% of people vaccinated by the Summer, we reached herd immunity. The ability of this virus to spread, we would really tamper that down and we’d block it,” says Dr. Lopez.
The doctors also discussed the two types of Covid-19 tests currently available to the public: Diagnostic/PCR and the Antibody test. If anyone wants to check if they have the coronavirus, then Dr. Lopez recommends getting the PCR test. The Antibody test only shows if there had been any previous infections of covid rather than if it is currently active in someone’s system.
It is possible to contract Covid-19 again after having already recovered from the virus, so it is recommended to get the vaccine if you never got one before. To get one, you would need to ask your primary care doctor.
“It’ll allow your immune system to have a more robust protection against Covid-19,” says Dr. Lopez. “Whether you can get infected again with Covid-19 after you’ve already had one infection, it’s rare. There have been case studies in South Korea where people that have tested positive ended up having a new infection months later, but those people ended up having a bit more mild symptoms. But that’s why we recommend that people who even test positive for Covid-19 get vaccinated.”
Santa Ana has the highest number of cases in Orange County, having an estimate of more than 32,000 since January 6th, and has had at least 2,000 deaths due to the pandemic.
“Yesterday was the deadliest day so far, with over four thousand reported deaths, which is an average of one Covid-19 death every 33 seconds,” says Dr. Zaldivar.
Overall, the number of people testing positive for the virus is over 20% in different Santa Ana zip codes. The last part of the presentation held trusted sources for more information: the CDPH, OC Health, and the CDC; along with the FDA, the NIH, and WHO.
Christian Gobres is a senior and the news editor of The Jag Journal and decided to join journalism because they want to learn more about the subject....
sebastian orozco • Feb 11, 2021 at 10:40 am
we need to stay safe and wear a mask so there wont be no more covid
Bryan Thomas Lee • Feb 9, 2021 at 10:52 am
I hope everyone is safe from this pandemic. Despite these vaccines, there are still many cases.
Ashley Lam • Jan 27, 2021 at 6:34 pm
The infection and death rates within Santa Ana, CA is not surprising to me, as I am aware that Santa Ana has a high population density, meaning countless families are unable to socially distance. As a result, one family member can quickly spread COVID-19 to their other family members. I understand that Johnson and Johnson is coming out with a COVID-19 Vaccine, as well in a few weeks, so I am hopeful the three companies can successfully work with the United States government in order to vaccinize as many Americans as possible. Yet, I worry that the second dose of the Moderna and Pfizer Vaccine will be hard to administer if those who receive the first dose forget to go back to receive the second one. From my perspective, members of our community should receive the vaccine if eligible, as milder symptoms could mean the healthcare system and Intense Care Units will not be as overwhelmed. Simultaneously, life, and schools may be able to return to what was once considered “normal”.
Brooke Mai Ha • Jan 25, 2021 at 2:49 pm
The number of people who die from COVID every day is very alarming. People need to prioritize staying home instead of always going out when they don’t need to.