Dave Weller is ending his year as President of the ECA. Josh Cleaver is starting his year as President. I wanted to take a moment and give credit to Dave Weller and thank him.
Sometimes you work with someone and it is unbearable. Other times, a person can get lucky as I did this past year working with Dave Weller of RCX. I have now worked with 11 Presidents of the ECA before I was the Executive Vice President, I was a President of the ECA. So, I have seen firsthand a lot of Presidents. I do not want to disparage any of our former Presidents, but Dave Weller is in a class by himself. Given the extraordinary circumstances that Covid 19 created, it is without question that Dave Weller faced the toughest year of any of our Presidents. Our survival was at stake. We had zero clue if the events that we love so much were going to be able to be held in 2020, 2021, or never. Now we pretty much know that events will come back this year. But last year we had no clue. This is the chaos Dave had to manage.
Dave Weller did a great job.
Dave came in with hopes of working with me to put out a 5-year strategic plan for the ECA in his Presidential year. Instead, he had to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and ways to keep cashflow going to the ECA while not being able to do events. It was not easy. It was very hard. Lots of tough decisions.
Dave remained upbeat and positive throughout. He worked hard, kept calm, and helped provide leadership to me and the Board that guided us through a very tough year. We made it. And we did so in no small part due to Dave Weller.
I also want to thank Tom Swegle and the crew over at RCX for allowing Dave he time and freedom to be one of the best Presidents the ECA has ever had. Dave did a terrific amount of research and reading with attention to detail in all of his ECA duties. He was always available (except on bid days) and he always had a thoughtful response to my updates to him.
Dave also chaired the ECA Spec committee and had his hands full dealing with Covid while holding Spec Committee meetings. We kept the ECA Spec committee going and cemented our relationships with Gabe Osborn, Jessee Oswald and Ian Hartage by virtue of our work on the Spec Committee.
We all owe a big “Thank You” to Dave Weller for his leadership this past year. Thanks for being a true leader Dave!
That’s all folks!
John
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Where and When Do YOU Get Vaccinated?
Sonoma County Emergency just went live with their Covid-19 Vaccination Website last week, and we had a 2 ½ hour Zoom meeting with Dr. Mase and Barbie Robinson from SoCoHealth last night to explain how vaccinations are being rolled out in SoCo. It is, to say the least, complex. See how nice I am in 2021? Anyway-here is the “lowdown”:
The supply of Covid-19 vaccines in the USA is limited at this point. Patience is urged. Vaccination doses come into the State of California from the Feds, then the State distributes them to the Counties (more or less) based upon population. The State and Federal guidelines as to who gets priority administration of the vaccines are how the County is allocating the vaccinations.
In Sonoma County-To find out what your vaccination eligibility is, go to
In Marin County- To find out what your vaccination eligibility is, go to
In Napa County-go to
Coronavirus (COVID-19) | Napa County, CA (countyofnapa.org)
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COVID-19 Facts
I sent a message to Jason Cunningham who runs the West County Health Department for Sonoma County, and I specifically asked about folks that have previously tested positive for Covid-19 and why they are not recommended to go in and get retested after their positive test. I know several friends who did just that, and they tested positive several months after, which led to some confusion to them and their friends and fellow employees as to whether they should be concerned with that positive test. Here are the facts from someone who knows!
Question: If someone had a positive test some weeks or months ago, and quarantined for 10 days after their onset of symptoms or the positive test, can they still be contagious?
To answer your specific questions: no need for repeat quarantine.
- After a natural infection, for some individuals, non-infectious viral particles can shed for weeks or months. The COVID-19 PCR test amplifies the genetic material from the virus and makes it very sensitive at picking up very small viral fragments and therefore can be positive for weeks to months after the infection, even though the person is not actively infected or contagious. Because of this, it is too confusing to retest at any time and don’t recommend people get tested if they have had a laboratory documented COVID-19 infection.
- Generally, use the rule of thumb of 10 days after onset of symptoms (or date of initial COVID-19 test if asymptomatic) as the period in which someone could be contagious or spreading the virus to others. Afterwards, that person should be able to rest assured they are no longer a risk of spreading the disease or contracting the disease.
- Although there has been a recorded case of an individual who was reinfected with a documented different viral strain, it is so exceedingly rare to be non-existent and I think the science will show a long-term immunity with the natural infections. It may turn out to be true that mild or minimally symptomatic infections give people a shorter immunity and therefore we are recommending vaccination even if someone has had the natural infection because we have clear science behind the immune response (and likely long-term protection).