The Dollar Point Association is following the California Department of Public Health and Placer County guidelines for Corona virus prevention to protect our staff, our members and other persons who use or visit DPA facilities. The State guidelines can be found at www.cdph.ca.gov. Once on the website, click on “Corona Virus Disease COVID-19” and then “COVID-updates”. The website is updated daily and may contain different information tomorrow than it does today.
On the CDPH website, you will find “New Guidance Documents” and a PDF on the State’s “Gatherings Guidance.”
For Placer County, go to www.placer.ca.gov/coronavirus. The website is also updated daily. At last check, there were 8 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Placer County, one of which resulted in the death of a vulnerable person. You may wish to also check surrounding counties and, if you do not live at Dollar Point full time, also check the county guidelines where you live.
The websites provide universal precautions to prevent the spread of the virus and illness and death from it.
The bad news and the good news.
The bad news is the State is currently recommending cancelling all non-essential gatherings of 250 persons or more. In our high season last year, we averaged about twice that number of persons at our venues. For other, smaller gatherings, the State recommends cancelling any gathering where there is less than 6 feet social distancing per person. The guidelines are for both indoor and outdoor spaces. Our facilities open in May, 2020 and we will follow the guidelines in existence at that time.
We are in the process of hiring staff and hoping for the best. We are currently looking for disinfecting wipes and cleaners that kill viruses and bacteria to use at our office now and at our venues this season. As of Monday, none were available in Tahoe City. Our staff is following universal precautions to protect themselves, like frequent washing of their hands, with soap, and keeping their hands away from their faces. They are also keeping the areas you might touch clean with the products that are available to them. You are encouraged to communicate with our staff via telephone and email and not by walk-in visit. If it is essential to walk in, please keep 6 feet from the employees.
The good news is as of the time of this report, Placer and surrounding counties, including Washoe County in Nevada have relatively few confirmed COVID-19 cases. Nevada County has no confirmed case and it contains the closest acute care hospital. We do not know the reason for no confirmed cases and do not want to play this down. We will try to confirm whether anyone has been tested or whether any person is suspected of having the symptoms.
The future. We have been advised that the virus and COVID-19 illnesses and death from it will spread. DPA venues had substantially greater than 37,000 visitors last year and those folks came from just about any county you can name and from other states and countries. About 20 million people visit Tahoe area communities each year.
Hope springs eternal but Hope is not a plan. Our plan is to follow the California department of health guidelines as we work through this. Let’s all be vigilant and do our bit to turn this thing around so we can enjoy each other’s company again in 2020.