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OC Supervisors Hold Emergency Meeting To Plan Coronavirus Training, Preparation

SANTA ANA (CBSLA) — The Orange County Board of Supervisors approved an emergency program Monday morning to provide specific training for first responders and medical providers on how to handle coronavirus patients.

The program is designed to give healthcare workers the proper equipment and a protocol to follow in the event of an outbreak in O.C.

"It only takes one small mistake for the virus to break containment, and that's what we want to prevent," O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do said Monday.

This latest move comes after the board declared a local health emergency over the coronavirus on Feb. 26.

On Monday morning, the Orange County Fire Authority disclosed that four of its firefighters had self-quarantined in an Irvine fire station after coming into contact with a possible coronavirus patient Saturday night.

"We need to be able to scale up, and this is where an assessment of where we are and where we may need to be by working with other jurisdictions is absolutely critical," Do said.

The federal government decided Friday against housing any quarantined coronavirus patients in Costa Mesa, prompting a judge to remove a court hearing about the issue from Monday's calendar, according to Costa Mesa city officials.

"I think the fact that we succeeded in pushing back on Fairview being a repository of COVID-19 patients doesn't mean we're in the clear as a county," Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do said. "We've been given warning by the CDC and the World Health Organization today that this pandemic may be severe, so it is time for us to look internally and make sure we have an adequate plan in place…We need a game plan and playbook in place so we don't make mistakes."

Orange County has just one confirmed case of coronavirus. Two patients in Washington State died over the weekend of coronavirus, and new cases were confirmed in New York, Rhode Island and Florida, bringing the U.S. total to 89 as of Monday morning, up from 65 on Friday night.

Fears of the potential pandemic caused a run in Los Angeles County this weekend on essentials like water, canned foods, disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer.

(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)

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