Category: Health & safety

Associate Vice Provost Russell Furr provides an update on public health restrictions at Stanford following the state’s lifting of the regional stay-at-home order, which still leaves local counties in the highest-risk purple tier of the state’s COVID-19 framework.

In a message to the campus community, Russell Furr, associate vice provost for Environmental Health & Safety addresses the vaccine plan for California, including the role of health care providers in the process; Stanford Health Care’s current distribution priorities; and the creation of Stanford’s COVID-19 Vaccine Governance Committee.

The State of California’s regional stay-at-home order for the Bay Area continues to be in effect. The order, initially in effect through last week, will be lifted once there is a four-week projection that regional intensive care unit capacity will remain at or above 15%.

Though Stanford continues to await information on whether universities will play a role in COVID-19 vaccine administration beyond the healthcare setting, the State of California is providing more information about its vaccine plans overall.

To comply with capacity limitations set by Santa Clara County, Stanford is limiting access to breakrooms and will make alternative break spaces available.

Russell Furr, associate vice provost for Environmental Health & Safety, notes that Stanford Health Care has begun vaccinating healthcare workers, and says that there is currently no information available as to when the vaccine will be available for the broader community.

San Mateo County will become subject to the state’s regional stay-at-home order later this week, due to the Bay Area falling below 15% of bed capacity in its intensive care units. The county will join Santa Clara County and other Bay Area counties that had already implemented the regional stay-at-home order on an accelerated basis.

The county’s updated directive calls for a quarantine of 10 days, rather than the original 14 days, for anyone arriving from travel of more than 150 miles away from Santa Clara County’s borders.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) recently issued an emergency standard addressing worker protections against workplace exposures to COVID-19.