We are finally starting to see some good news in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic: vaccines are reaching more people, cases and hospitalizations are down in many places, and we have a new administration whose policy is guided by science and public health. But deaths are still high and will likely reach half a million before the end of this month. New variants of the coronavirus are spreading faster from person to person. And many people, including some state leaders, seem determined to make the pandemic worse. There’s still work to do!
My community, Davis, California, has been showing how local action can make a huge difference in fighting the pandemic. Our partnership between the University of California at Davis and the town itself was featured on MSNBC and in the New York Times as a model for the country. (Disclosure: my department, Public Health Sciences, has led the project.)
For those who might have missed us in the news, I’d like to summarize our Healthy Davis Together project. I’d also like to ask other communities, especially those with universities or colleges that might have resources like ours, what positive steps their community has taken.
The key components to our community’s efforts to fight COVID-19 have been:
- Frequent testing of asymptomatic people, with rapid turnaround of results.
- Quarantine of people who test positive.
- Contact tracing and isolation until they can be confirmed as not infected.
- Universal acceptance of face masks and physical distance in public places.
- Limiting indoor contact by following county and state guidelines for public places and private gatherings.
Testing: The project recognized that COVID-19 was spread by asymptotic cases as well as symptomatic. So frequent testing with rapid turnaround would be essential to catch and isolate new cases and exposed people. There were few resources and or guidelines nationally. Developing testing capability has been a key to bringing some students back safely and fighting COVID-19 spread on campus and in the community. The university developed its own saliva test, validated it against nasal swab testing, and utilized equipment from the plant sciences department to scale up to run thousands of tests a day. Initially this was available to students and staff, but it’s now expanded to the whole community, with multiple testing sites around town. (Mobile vans are starting to make this available to farmworkers in our region now.) The university is even testing wastewater now.
Quarantine and contact tracing: Graduate students have been trained to help with contact tracing. Dorm space has been set aside for students to be quarantined if infected or exposed, and hotel rooms and apartments for cases in the community.
Face masks and physical distance: A team of nearly 300 undergraduates serve as “public health ambassadors” who give out free masks, encourage testing, staff the testing centers, and help spread information and remind people about best practices. I saw several of these students giving out free masks at our farmers’ market, where booths are spaced out, vendors and customers were all wearing masks, and hand sanitizer stations were everywhere.
Limiting indoor contact: The county and state guidelines have changed over the course of the pandemic. For example, restaurants have been closed altogether at times, open for limited indoor dining at other times, and outdoor dining only much of the time. (Our relatively mild climate makes this option possible.) Stores check for masks, limit number of customers at a time, and remind people to stay at least six feet apart. Community leaders as well as university folks are strong supporters (our mayor does public service announcements on TV all the time) and compliance has been excellent.
Our efforts have worked so far to keep Davis’s case count low relative to other nearby communities. Even our nursing homes and retirement communities have escaped major outbreaks, with only a handful of cases reported. The university is adding vaccine capability to its testing sites and mobile vans as fast as vaccines become available.
So here’s a question: could some of these components work in your town? I’m especially wondering about similar towns with universities or colleges that might have such resources – Ithaca, NY? Champaign-Urbana, IL? Ames, Iowa? College Station, TX?
