Everybody from the president to California’s governor leaned on the public health bully pulpit last week, speaking on camera to the masses and urging solidarity as the Omicron variant sent case rates soaring.
In San Diego County, though, that kind of direct, face-to-face approach, once a key feature of the local public health department’s outreach strategy, has faded from sight.
Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health director and officer — the person with the most authority when there’s a pandemic — has not held a press conference since September, preferring instead to encourage vaccination, social distancing and caution in written statements.
It’s a much different look than the one San Diegans became accustomed to last December, when Wooten stood alongside county Supervisors Greg Cox and Nathan Fletcher pleaded for caution during the holiday season even as hospital beds filled rapidly.
To be sure, it is not the same situation today. Though the number of new infections detected across the region is increasing rapidly, hospitalizations, so far anyway, have not shown the same quick rise. On Wednesday, the most recent day for which data is available, 384 hospital beds were filled by confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients compared to 1,458 on Dec. 22, 2020. Last year, there were nearly as many residents in intensive care beds fighting COVID-19 as there are in total today.
A widely available vaccine, two doses of which have now been received by 2.4 million of the region’s 3.3 million residents, is obviously the reason for that positive change. Preliminary studies are showing that, even though it is clearly more transmissible, Omicron seems to pose less risk of severe illness in those who are fully vaccinated and especially for those who have received a third booster dose.
And yet, this is an uncertain moment.
While Omicron’s hospitalization rate may indeed be lower than its predecessors, all that means is that it will take a significantly larger number of infections to generate enough severe cases to swamp hospitals. Medical facilities of all types have been reporting staffing shortages for months alongside a sustained surge in non-COVID demand for medical care. As this new variant arrives, then, the local and national health care system is more fragile than it was last year.
And the environment has also changed. Last Christmas, restaurants were only allowed to serve take-out and bars were closed by state decree. This year, those spots are open without capacity restrictions. Though a recent statewide indoor mask mandate is now in place for locations that serve the public, experts say they’re not likely to be very effective in places where people crowd in shoulder-to-shoulder.
This moment may seem to be the time for a community’s public health officer to be front-and-center, using their expertise and authority to communicate directly to the populace.
That’s exactly what happened last December when Wooten, flanked by Cox and Fletcher, held six press conferences, broadcasting directly onto social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube and drawing thousands of real-time viewers with video clips often amplified further in subsequent media coverage.
Lately, the county seems to be distancing itself from the role of directly communicating on COVID-19 matters. A joint statement this week with the Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties directed the media to representatives at the region’s health systems for any one-on-one interviews.
Wooten continues to make monthly coronavirus updates to the Board of Supervisors, but otherwise has maintained a low profile as Omicron has arrived. Those appearances have been painful to watch as many angry citizens show up to lambast county government for its prosecution of the pandemic. One meeting this summer included a racist slur directed at Wooten.
Why is the approach more distant this year?
Neither the physician nor Supervisor Fletcher responded in person this week to requests for comment.
Wooten did reply through county communications officer Tim McClain, who said in an email that “it is important to recognize that we are in a very different situation than we were 12 months ago.”
Many experts outside county government, he said, are now available to speak the the public about COVID-19 and “Dr. Wooten and all of us consider them critical allies.”
“While there haven’t been the same level of press conferences as pre-and-early days of vaccination, Dr. Wooten and the entire team of public health medical professionals remain highly engaged in a variety of ways, including through virtual sessions, sector meetings, one-on-one and panel media interviews and the health misinformation panels,” McClain said. “Since our last press conference, there have been scores of these kinds of contacts.”
James Canning, a spokesman for Fletcher, said in an email that the emphasis on outside doctors is driven by research on effective communication.
“I’ve been informed that data shows right now doctors are the best messengers to break through to people who have yet to get vaccinated, so we are pleased to see so much coordination,” Canning said. “In fact, it was great to see the county and hospital association partner again for a holiday message.”
But regular communications between public health officials and the public they serve, experts say, remains critical.
Dr. Elena Savoia is a deputy director at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health whose research focuses on “understanding how to improve communication efforts directed to the public during large-scale emergencies.” She said regular personal communication helps build trust with the public.
“It is also important not to assume that the vaccinated do not have questions or do not need information,” Savoia said. “In addition to releasing messages, it is also important to listen to the public.
“Venues where public officials can listen to public concerns are even more important.”
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December 25, 2021 at 09:00PM
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As coronavirus case rates soar, once ubiquitous county leaders stay low-key - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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