Great news! Excited to get out and enjoy our Downtown! Thank you to Alameda County for being mindful about reopening and Pleasanton for closing Main Street. I hope everyone continues to wear face masks and is thoughtful about social distancing. Yay - fantastic!

Well, I really can't bring myself to 'thank' Alameda County and Dr Pan as I think she is a tyrant and imposing outrageous measures on us. How will Pleasanton conform to her new 30 foot requirement for mask wearing or has everyone just done a collective 'eye roll' at that one and summarily ignored her. Not a great way to get us to comply. Perhaps she should look to our governor. Even he realized people have their limits. Question: how do you get rid of your Health Director?

Fantastic, this sounds like a good start! Hopefully there will be “ No Pets” allowed during these times when restaurants start to reopen on Main St. Lets keep the streets clean and free of urine, poop and germs !!

If only downtown restaurants had waited a week to legally reopen for outdoor dining, they would have had more room to do so responsibly. Instead, they defied county mandate and are already cramming customers into the small, crowded, and therefore risky, spaces they have available. How disappointing.

Elle,
What would you do if your family's livelihood was being eroded by someone who has no stake in the loss and isn't footing the mounting bills adding up? Additionally, other counties are opening and yours isn't.....not because the data doesn't support it, just because you have a rogue interim health director that says so....one you didn't elect, have no ability to challenge or remove.

This is a country of doers, not passive victims.

Office-based businesses deserve to open too, subject to applicable guidelines. Presently, Dr. Pan gets to decide which businesses operate based on her personal opinion of how ‘essential’ our work is. Restore the Fourteenth Amendment!

What about the mobility impaired and the physically disabled people? Where do you expect them to park and still have equal access to dining out in downtown Pleasanton?

I think every business in Pleasanton should open now. The Alameda Health Department has no clue on what they are doing.

Elle, the place I went to was very well spaced out and amazing about masks and cleaning. It was just taking food to go and then eating on their patio. Maybe blame the customers, not the restaurant. These poor people are losing their livelihood and their businesses. If you're not ready, that's fine too.

Cyndy,
As described access is equal, it may not be mobility enhanced, but correct me if I'm wrong - if you're closing off the main streets there would have to be enough handicap parking at the perimeter of downtown, but not "inside" that perimeter. I see it no different than a mall. The handicap spaces are located near the mall entrance, but there is no closer parking inside the mall.

Ok, spreading dinning into the streets of Pleasanton allowed by the Alameda County Health Department.

How does this allowance coexist with the same Alameda County Health Department for food safety. Food safety inspectors are now inspecting into the streets of Pleasanton?

Will the expansion of the dining area also expand the dinning area for the rats and cockroaches?

Ron:

what about us that live downtonw on Main Street and walk our dogs every day -do we have to stop because you don't want a cute adorable dog walking by? I will keep alking my dog and pick up his poop!

Nobody here wears a mask or even tries to social distance. I’m sure with all the openings it will be business as usual. Everyone’s forgot we are still in a pandemic. I expect to see a rise in the number of cases.

If you seen the news or checked on social media you know that the people of Pleasanton will not be wearing masks to enjoy some gool ol fine dining. Try counting the number of Pleasanton residents that actually have a mask on outside. I can count 10 people walking on the sidewalk right now, passing each other in groups without a mask. There is nothing better than the ones with the mask around their chin lol.
Now the decent people that are out just following the Alameda county mandate by wearing a mask will be forced to confront the jerks who refuse to wear mask and walking past us in groups.
Obviously they are more important than the rest of us and our health does not matter. Instead of being a friendly neighbor and just wearing a mask so we can all enjoy downtown or a simple walk, we are being told to stay inside if we don't like it.
Unfortunately more residents of Pleasanton are going to end up getting sick. Most of the people that eat downtown are older so I hope that they stay safe. We all know thats the age group with the most to be worried about. Our gross white privilege will not protect us from Covid19. Have a great summer!
Sincerely,
Karen, wife of Darren

Alameda County needs to end the shutdown and reopen the county to, at least, the same stage as Los Angeles County. As of June 17, our rates for infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are better than Los Angeles County. Alameda County has 129 hospital cases (2 in the Tri-Valley) with a total number of beds of 2,929, meaning a bit more than 4% of the beds have someone with Covid. By comparison, Los Angeles County has 23% of their hospital beds with someone with Covid. While any death is a terrible thing, the deaths in Alameda County have totaled 112, or 2.59% of the Covid Cases. Los Angeles County by comparison has a rate of 3.97% fatality rate. Looking at the percent of known people infected with Covid it is 0.26% of the total Alameda County population. Los Angeles County is 0.72%. Deaths as a percent of the total population is 0.007% for Alameda County and 0.029% for Los Angeles County. (All numbers are from covid19.ca.gov, ac-hcsa.maps.arcgis.com, and dashboard.publichealth.lacounty.gov. Percentages are simple divisions of the numbers from these sites).

The only areas that Alameda County falls behind Los Angeles County are in testing (140 versus 220/100K) and in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) where Alameda County lags significantly behind Los Angeles County. Both areas can be addressed and corrected by the county, but even so, they are no reason to keep the county closed.

Alameda County does not report death by age group if a group has less than ten people in it. Of the 112 deaths, only 2 were persons of 50 or less (112 total deaths - reported deaths for other age groups). Yet the 50 or less age group accounts for 3,062 of all Covid cases (70.83%) for a death rate of 0.065%. Certainly, we can reopen for those that are 50 or younger. As we go up in age the death rate climbs rapidly (51-60 - 2.11%, 61-70 - 4.21%, 71-80 - 14.46%, 81+ - 24.44%) so it would make sense to encourage those over 80 and perhaps over 70 to stay at home for longer. Having said that, my Mother-in-Law is 94 and not in particularly good health and she has been confined to her room at her assisted living facility with no visitors since late February-early March. She doesn't have years to make up for the time she has been alone in her room. She has left the facility once and that was to go to a doctor for an injection. When you don't have much life left, this is no way to spend it.

There is another reason to reopen and it has little to do with the numbers. It has to do with the people who no one seems to acknowledge, the people who have been laid off, fired, or whose businesses have been shut down. I'm retired and my pension arrives every month, so the shutdown has been an inconvenience. There are also people who have been furloughed but are still getting paid. But far more people have lost their livelihood, many with no job to go back to once the county reopens, yet the bills still come in and the family needs to be fed. It is cruel to keep them unemployed while those of us who are "inconvenienced" make the decisions. I have read comments from people wanting to see a hairdresser or barber, and they have gotten vilified for wanting such a unimportant service done. I, however, look at it from the other side, that of the barber or hairdresser. They are prevented from earning an income. Imagine you own a barber shop. Every month you have your rent to pay, your utilities, any loans on your business, plus all of your personal expenses (home mortgage, utilities, food, car payment, and on and on). You can't work because someone in the county health department, who is drawing a full paycheck doesn't think it is time to reopen the county.

Enough already. Reopen Alameda County. If you are concerned about your own risk, continue to shelter in place. Since I am 70, I won't be the first to join a Conga line, but don't destroy the financial lives of so many of our fellow citizens while we try to keep the virus at bay. Remember "flattening the curve" was not to prevent the virus from spreading, but rather slowing the spread to prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed. With only 4.33% of our hospital beds occupied by Covid patients, we have capacity in case there is a surge.

didn't look safe at all in pleasanton.. hardly any mask, too close to each other.. etc etc. I liked the idea but the execution was poor.

While it would be better if people did better about wearing masks, the Covid-19 infection rate in Pleasanton is 0.0874% (72 cases/82,372).[removed: commenter, please provide source] Near as I can find Valley Care has 167 beds which would make it 0.012% of capacity.

All Covid-19 data is from Alameda County Health Department. Population and capacity of Valley Care from Google. All data as of 8:55AM, 6/22/20.

As additional perspective this article from the Sacramento Bee on April 13, 2020 <Web Link Covid-19 was the third largest cause of death in the state based on CDC data from April 2016, 2017 & 2018 averaged. On average heart disease took 1,202 and cancer 1,130 per week in April while 332 lives were lost the week ending April 11th. After publication the next two weeks saw a rise of 515 & 545 respectively and then remained around 500 for the rest of May. In June so far it has been below 440 per week.

Every life is precious regardless of how lost, but it is important to keep mind the relative comparison of things that happen normally.

[removed - commenter, please provide source]

Here's the source. I put it in the original post but it appears to have been stripped.

Web Link

In case it gets stripped again it is:
https www sacbee com news local health-and-medicine article241956956 html

with the appropriate : / and . in the correct places.

The number of deaths subsequent to the article is from the California Covid-19 Dashboard. The link is:

Web Link

In case it gets stripped it is:
https public tableau com views COVID-19PublicDashboard Covid-19Public

You have to go day by day on the graph and get the deaths and then add them up.