San Jose City staff recommended that the city extend a local state of emergency until April 9, in response to new coronavirus transmissions, Tuesday.
City Manager David Sykes said that the city should ratify the existence of a local emergency in response to the pandemic in a memorandum.
According to the memorandum, ratifying a local emergency “allows the city to exercise extraordinary police powers, such as evacuation; immunity for emergency actions; authorization of issuance of orders and regulations; activation of pre-established emergency provisions; and is a prerequisite for requesting state or federal assistance.”
As of press time, the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department reported 45 confirmed cases and one death in the county.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said that the city is taking action to prevent further spread of coronavirus by canceling events with an attendance of 1,000 or more people and “modifying programming for senior residents” and “communicating social distancing strategies.”
Liccardo also suggested that COVID-19 has reached city hall.
“We are, in fact, seeing the impact here in San Jose with potential cases of exposure within our organization,” Liccardo said during the council meeting Tuesday. “We are working with the support and guidance of [Santa Clara County Health Officer] Dr. Sara Cody and county public health to take the necessary measures to prevent further spread of the virus.”
Councilmember Raul Peralez told the Spartan Daily that San Jose’s Pandemic Response team is in Stage IV of their alert level. Stage IV means there is a high risk to the local population and an outbreak is imminent, according to the team.
“We’re already running and we’re sort of prepared for, you know, the worst,” Peralez said. “But at the moment, you know, we’re going day by day just like everybody else.”
Deputy City Manager Kip Harkness warned the community that the city foresees an uptick in reported cases in the coming days as more people get tested.
“We should expect these cases to continue to increase in the days and weeks as testing expands and the virus continues to spread,” he said. “That spread could be expediential, and we should expect to see a potential rapid increase in the number of cases.”
Harkness added that the county is preparing for the virus to impact the health care system as more citizens seek treatment.
He said that there is “plenty of capacity” as of now, but the county is increasingly concerned about the demand for treatment moving forward.
Contributing reporting by Diana Avila
