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Six months after the stay-at-home order, the coronavirus pandemic world persists

Many put their hopes in a COVID-19 vaccine, though modified behaviors are likely to exist well into the future.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order for California on March 19, 2020, to address the novel coronavirus as cases began multiplying throughout the state. Californians have now been living under the shadow of their pandemic life for six months. It has changed life for many in profound ways.

Joe Rodriguez was one of the first in the area to test positive for the coronavirus. He left for a cruise to Spain in late April and says he thinks he was infected while rushing back to the United States before the borders closed.

“Four days later, you know, that was Friday the 13th,” explained Rodriguez. “And then Wednesday, four or five days later, I came down with it. So it had to be the plane.”

Things quickly turned deadly serious for him.

“They put me in a coma, put me on a ventilator, shoved a tube down my throat,” said Rodriguez. “And everybody, friends of my sister who are nurses, and they go, ‘Oh, your brother’s on a ventilator? Oooh.’ And they knew it was not good news.”

He’s been through a lot, but he’s doing well. He’s in good spirits and he knows what he wants to see in the next six months.

“I hope all the infighting gets resolved and they find a cure,” said Rodriguez before correcting himself. “Well, not a cure, but just a vaccination to help people.”

On the leading edge of the search for a safe, effective vaccine is UC Davis Health and their clinical trials of the Pfizer vaccine. The principal investigator is Dr. Timothy Albertson who says the study is going well.

“The first patients are now getting their second vaccination and we’re still enrolling patients for their first vaccination,” explained Dr. Albertson. “So you can see that this is going to take time to accumulate this data.”

When Dr. Albertson was asked if he agreed with CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, who said the public could expect a bit of normalcy and a vaccine by the third quarter of 2021, Dr. Albertson said there’s no way he could know.

“C’mon, I mean, what is normal?” questioned Dr. Albertson. “I think that seems crystal ball-like and I’m not in the business of crystal balls. So I can’t tell you what life will be like six months, at 12…I wouldn’t have predicted life was what it is today six months ago. So no, I can’t predict that.”

He says what’s most important are two things: safety and efficacy.

“I think if we had a functional, safe, and efficacious vaccine, life would come back to normal much more quickly than without it. I think that the chances of having that available to the large numbers of people in the United States is extremely small by the first of the year,” Dr. Albertson said.

Sacramento County Public Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye has seen the rise and fall of the virus over the last six months.

“The stay-at-home order was issued on March 19th," explained Dr. Kasirye. “Initially we were able to bend the curve so that by the time we got to the end of April, we were actually able to start to look at reopening.”

However, she says cases started to rise in June because many thought the worst was behind us, and they resumed gatherings in homes.

“We really got to the peak in July, end of July where we got as many as 300 cases in a day,” explained Dr. Kasirye.

Fortunately, cases in Sacramento County are falling once again.

“In the next 6 months, our hope is that we will continue to trend downwards to the point where we are able to safely open our schools and our businesses,” said Dr. Kasirye.

Still, she admits things like mask-wearing and social distancing will persist into the immediate future.

“I think it’s good to have hope but we do need to know what the reality is. And the reality is right now we do have to modify our behavior.”

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