Speaker 1: This morning, the US is inching closer to a coronavirus
Speaker 1: shutdown across the board. Seven million residents in the San
Speaker 1: Francisco Bay Area have, in order to shelter in place,
Speaker 1: only allowed to leave their homes for essential reasons. It
Speaker 1: is the nation's strictest measures so far. Is that a
Speaker 1: suggestion or a lot you get a fine? I don't
Speaker 1: know what happens there. Also, if you live in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area, you probably know this. If you don't, it's
Speaker 1: probably coming to you soon. This whole you gotta stay
Speaker 1: home routine. I absolutely think that in the dense or
Speaker 1: more densely populating parts of the country, it's just a
Speaker 1: matter of days before everybody's hearing something like this. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be like Italy and Germany and France and everywhere
Speaker 1: else South Korea. Alameda Contra Costi, Contra costum or in
Speaker 1: Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz County
Speaker 1: so far appear to be a most aggressive public response
Speaker 1: to coronavirus anywhere in the US so far, and from
Speaker 1: Alameda County. Sergeant Ray Kelly joins us raised, the public
Speaker 1: Information officer for the Alameda Sheriff's Office, Sergeant Kelly, how
Speaker 1: are you, sir? Oh, good morning. I got about five
Speaker 1: hours sleep, but I'm ready to roll back at it again.
Speaker 1: It's been it's been a roller coaster of of a week,
Speaker 1: to say the least. Right. I have friends in law
Speaker 1: enforcement who say that things are changing by the half hour,
Speaker 1: and everybody's just scrambling to figure out what's what. So
Speaker 1: how would you characterize the shelter in place order? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's there are a plenty of exceptions. Nobody's going to
Speaker 1: get their head cracked for leaving their house. What do
Speaker 1: you have to say? Well, okay, what do you have
Speaker 1: to say to the citizens of the Bay area so
Speaker 1: that you know that that's a great question. And I'm
Speaker 1: getting asked all sorts of questions. I got people calling
Speaker 1: me and asking me, even friends and family, Hey can
Speaker 1: I go for a walk? Can I go do this?
Speaker 1: So what people are being asked to do is if
Speaker 1: you're doing non essential things. If you're not, uh, have
Speaker 1: a reason to go and do whatever activity is in
Speaker 1: the health order, Um, we're asking you not to do it.
Speaker 1: The most important thing is large groups and situations where
Speaker 1: people don't need to interact because they don't serve in
Speaker 1: essential function that they stay home and that they practice
Speaker 1: the physical social distancing. Um that's been asked to them.
Speaker 1: Use use the word asked twice? Are you asking people?
Speaker 1: Are telling people, well, this is it is a law.
Speaker 1: It's a misdemeanor violation of the Health and Safety Code
Speaker 1: to to violate it. But the issue is is we're
Speaker 1: not looking to fill up our jails with with a
Speaker 1: bunch of citizens that violated, you know, the law. So
Speaker 1: there's there's the spirit of the law and the letter
Speaker 1: of the law. You know, we as a society have
Speaker 1: social norms and people do what is socially normal. So
Speaker 1: we're we know that the majority of our citizens here
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area are going to do the right thing,
Speaker 1: that they're going to follow the guideline, and that other
Speaker 1: people are gonna show each other what is socially acceptable.
Speaker 1: So for example, you know, three weeks ago, four weeks ago,
Speaker 1: we shook each other's hands. Now we see people not
Speaker 1: shaking each other's hands. That's not socially acceptable because people
Speaker 1: are concerned about their health and so, um, we have
Speaker 1: a way of kind of policing ourselves as a society
Speaker 1: and telling each other, what's good, what's right, what's wrong.
Speaker 1: So in that regard, I think we will all help
Speaker 1: each other do the right thing. And so, uh, this
Speaker 1: notion or this mindset that's that some people have that
Speaker 1: the police are going to be out there just looking
Speaker 1: for you to violate the rules, that's not the case.
Speaker 1: We're really we really know and truly believe that people
Speaker 1: will do the right thing. And you know, here the
Speaker 1: the alternative is not good because the longer we we
Speaker 1: don't follow the guidelines, the longer we kicked the can
Speaker 1: down the road, the longer we have to stay in
Speaker 1: these conditions. So we have an opportunity to knock this down. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't even know where in what direction this is
Speaker 1: headed at this point in our region. And so so
Speaker 1: we have an opportunity to get ahead of this, and
Speaker 1: now is the time to do it. Because when you are,
Speaker 1: your officers go if you if you don't buy a
Speaker 1: restaurant that's open, uncertain people, and you are, your officers
Speaker 1: go in there and talk to the owner and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't do that. Well, so so we would go
Speaker 1: to a business if it's a non essential business, and
Speaker 1: we would go there and we would ask them you're
Speaker 1: you're you're not allowed to do this. People are allowed
Speaker 1: to go to their business two check on their their infrastructure,
Speaker 1: to check the freezers, to do their payroll, to to
Speaker 1: manage the day to day UH operations of their business
Speaker 1: to keep it functioning, so that when we're done with this,
Speaker 1: people can then turn the lights back on and go
Speaker 1: to work. So people can do that. People will be
Speaker 1: going in and out of businesses and work and doing that.
Speaker 1: But but we're saying that you can't open your bar
Speaker 1: and restaurant back up and crowd people within inches of
Speaker 1: each other and begin to spread the virus UM, a
Speaker 1: virus that we know to be spread even if you're asymptomatic.
Speaker 1: So we have to practice the social distancing guidelines. If
Speaker 1: you have an essential job, if you're in an industry
Speaker 1: that we need you in and we need you to
Speaker 1: be at work, UM, then you'll go there but yourself
Speaker 1: to practice the guidelines of the Health Order while you're working. So,
Speaker 1: Sergeant ray Kelly, it's a unique it's a unique time,
Speaker 1: but we're not we're not out there looking to, you know,
Speaker 1: put handcuffs on people and take them to jail, because
Speaker 1: our jails, our jails. They don't have the capacity or
Speaker 1: the ability, nor do we have. So what do you
Speaker 1: in for? I was five ft away from a guy
Speaker 1: next to me. That would be both ironic and counter
Speaker 1: productive to cram the jails full of people. Sergeant Ray
Speaker 1: Kelly is the public Information officer at the Alameda County
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office. Uh, listen, I understand the contingency planning doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that something's going to happen. But what have you
Speaker 1: been hearing from the Governor's office, for instance, about what
Speaker 1: might be next? Well, you know, right now, he's gonna
Speaker 1: have to clean up and address some of the essential functions,
Speaker 1: like what those are. So one of the things we're
Speaker 1: worried about is like manufacturing certain manufacturing facilities that produced
Speaker 1: things that we need, so we need to deal with that.
Speaker 1: Um in Silicon Valley. A lot of people down there
Speaker 1: can work remotely and continue their jobs, but there's certain
Speaker 1: jobs that that we need people to go into in
Speaker 1: certain industries to make supplies, to manufacture things that we're
Speaker 1: going to need that are essential to everyday life. So
Speaker 1: I think hopefully he addresses things like that. I think
Speaker 1: we're going to just have to feel this out in
Speaker 1: the coming days, adjust and adapt as as the situation unfolds.
Speaker 1: I think we can look to Italy and what's going
Speaker 1: on over there. I know I've been been watching that
Speaker 1: to see what how they're handling it, because they've been
Speaker 1: doing this now for a couple of weeks. So um.
Speaker 1: And then I heard you say earlier in the show
Speaker 1: that that that this is likely coming to other larger areas,
Speaker 1: and that's probably true. So people are gonna be looking
Speaker 1: at our model to see how we're how we're doing
Speaker 1: here in the in the six Barrier counties that are
Speaker 1: in this So he is there has there been any
Speaker 1: discussion of actual martial law at this point. No. I
Speaker 1: have been on multiple phone calls. We have been on
Speaker 1: multiple phone calls. Of course we would no. I I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, because because we're in the United States,
Speaker 1: and because we are a democracy, and because we have
Speaker 1: the Constitution and a whole lot of rights, is really
Speaker 1: hard to impose those types of situations onto people like
Speaker 1: you can do in a country like China. You can
Speaker 1: knock lock people down and drag them off if they
Speaker 1: don't follow and and create. But we have due process.
Speaker 1: We have a colonel justice system. We have things in place,
Speaker 1: um for those reasons. So there's there, there's all these
Speaker 1: extremes out there. But I just I think if people
Speaker 1: just practice and do um what we're asking of them
Speaker 1: through with our health experts and they listen, we can
Speaker 1: all get through this in a way that is manageable
Speaker 1: and puts less stress on everyone. Sergeant Ray Kelly, the
Speaker 1: Alamida Sheriff's Office. Uh, sergeant, keep you guys safe and
Speaker 1: healthy and keep doing a good job. We appreciate the time. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, take care all right. Thanks And
Speaker 1: if you weren't listening at the first party, said they
Speaker 1: will taste people if they're standing less and six ft
Speaker 1: from Oh boy, exactly the way I interpreted it. But
Speaker 1: we got a text and says, Jack, you're not helping
Speaker 1: with any of your comments. That's probably true that every day,
Speaker 1: you know, you ever listen to the show, the more
Speaker 1: he he's out of control. The more I think about it,
Speaker 1: the more I feel like this is just all going
Speaker 1: to take care of itself without having going to get
Speaker 1: into some of these details. Because as fewer and fewer
Speaker 1: people go out, the businesses are going to close because
Speaker 1: it's cheaper to be closed. Than to be open. And
Speaker 1: if there's no place to go because everything's closed, nobody's
Speaker 1: gonna go out. So there's just I mean, where would
Speaker 1: I go if I did leave my home? And that
Speaker 1: will help? And one person driving around is not gonna
Speaker 1: be a big deal anyway. I mean, so there's there's
Speaker 1: just it's just gonna build on itself. Well, and I
Speaker 1: think of the vast majority of people understand the intent
Speaker 1: of all this, and they think, yeah, that's legit. All
Speaker 1: the people I trust tell me this is legit. It's legit.
Speaker 1: I don't want people dying by the hundreds of the thousands.
Speaker 1: And one of the things they're starting to see in
Speaker 1: a couple of places like New York, in Washington State
Speaker 1: and UM and a couple others is that you're having
Speaker 1: more healthcare workers getting sick, more hospital nurses getting sick.
Speaker 1: And we really really want to avoid that because this
Speaker 1: system could get overwhelmed in such a big hurry that
Speaker 1: people are thinking, yeah, I know they're not gonna arrest me,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna do it anyway. I got this text.
Speaker 1: It's highly recommended that every will check the expiration date
Speaker 1: on their toilet paper. If expired, it will not protect
Speaker 1: you from the coronavirus. Oh boy, when will the toilet
Speaker 1: paper crisis end? I was written The Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: has got two articles about it today. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: like next week. The big manufacturers have ramped up, which
Speaker 1: brings me to the the the interesting economic discussion of
Speaker 1: should prowse price gouging be allowed? And I've been convinced
Speaker 1: that it should be. Um, it makes perfectly good sense
Speaker 1: to me. And we can get into that if the
Speaker 1: people are worth saving, they'd have money to buy. Right.
Speaker 1: We're going to need a higher level classes to lead
Speaker 1: us to the new future. They've canceled the post viral future.
Speaker 1: They canceled the Kentucky Derby for the first time ever.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, when will it end? Have they told
Speaker 1: the horses