Webinar on Eviction Moratorium - Santa Clara County

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Multimillionaire Hoang Kieu Sent 58 Pallets of Supplies to San Jose

Two weeks ago, along with Garden Grove City Councilmembers Phat Bui and Thu Ha Nguyen, and former State Senator Janet Nguyen, the multimillionaire Hoang Kieu organized a drive-by pick up of food and safety supplies at Garden Grove City Park.  His timing was impeccable for he planned it two days before the recall election of three Vietnamese-American elected officials that he personally put up $1.1 million to recall them.

 However, as the car line was forming to enter the park, police officers were instructed by the city mayor to stop the event for violation of shelter in place policy.

Undeterred by the politics,  Hoang Kieu vowed to reschedule the event during Easter weekend.  This time he received the exemption from the city  and the event was on.  Then came the bad news, his recall effort of three Vietnamese-American council members of Westminster failed.  Matter of fact, the voters rejected by a landslide.  He promptly stopped promoting the donation event.   However, as a practical man,  he simply consolidated the supplies, packed them in three semi-trucks destination to San Jose for distribution.   

The supplies include enough rice, Ramen noodles, cloth masks and hand sanitizers to support about 5,000 people. 

Expect an announcement from the Mayor's office on how to receive the supplies.

Fundraiser to Support Healthcare Workers

Mixed News About COVID-19 in Santa Clara County

First some good news -

The shelter-in-place mandate is showing some good results.  The rate of new infection cases has increased  about 4.4% for the last two days instead of the usual 10% to 15% per day.  There is also a decrease in the number of  COVID-19 patients in ICU and also the number of people being hospitalized.  

Governor Newsom yesterday announced the returning of 500 ventilators to the national stockpile.  He said California has enough ventilators to fight the virus since the new cases will not be as high as projected.


Still in crisis mode news -

San Jose Office of Emergency Management just activates its CERT volunteers in preparing for the crest next week.   CERT is a trained community emergency response team qualifies to response to disaster crisis and help neighborhoods where emergency responders may not be immediately available.

Friends of Hue Foundation has a 30-member team that are ready to go.  They are lead by Jenny Do who is also spearheading the donation effort of crucial personal protective equipment supplies to healthcare workers and distribution of food to vulnerable populations in the county.

Meanwhile, the shortage of PPE is reaching a point where the county has issued an order to businesses and individuals with large stockpiles must report their inventory within a week. 

Update of the previous article on a new invention to fight against the pandemic, Friends of Hue Foundation has ordered 40 custom made aerosol boxes.  The contraption reduces the risk of infection for doctors and nurses during intubation procedure on severely sick COVID-19 patients.  The one in picture above is being inspected by a doctor at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Jose.  Another one is being tested out another group of doctors in a picture below.

Face Shield Custom Made for Nurses and Doctors

In response to requests for face shield from the local ER personnel, Friends of Hue Foundation asked a local linen shop for equipment and space to create a face shield to meet the  needs of the healthcare professionals who are battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first prototype was tested with some staff and Kaiser Permanente in San Jose this week.  If meet specs, each will be produced individually for the nurses and doctors.

For those who would like to donate, help or need assistance, please contact Friends of Hue Foundation at 408-755-5189 or jennydo@friendsofhue.org

Also, the website has some valuable information about available resources:

https://friendsofhue.org/

Friends of Hue Foundation Spirit, "Silicon Valley Strong"

Friends of Hue Foundation, a nonprofit organization operates in San Jose, has been overwhelmed with requests for personal protective equipment (PPE) from nurses and doctors at hospitals and clinics across the Bay Area.  The foundation receives many text messages from healthcare professionals as far as Stockton describing the lack of equipment condition that they are facing everyday.  And all of them are concerned about the lack of safety protection that they are experiencing.  Valley Medical Center in San Jose has been planning for 20% of their workforce to be out action during the crisis peak as they expect  healthcare workers will either be infected (due to the shortage of PPE) or stay home to take of their sick loved ones.

In response, the lawyer and activist Jenny Do, board member of FHF, went online and started asking for N95 masks, surgical masks, hazmat suits, face shields and hand sanitizers.   These are hard to find items even with money to buy.  Yet FHF has managed to secure and distribute over 7,500 N95 masks, ten thousands surgical masks, 5,000 pair of surgery gloves, 4,000 hand sanitizers and hundreds of face shields and goggles to nurses, doctors, nursing homes and homeless shelters.  

To show their appreciations, some nurses and doctors from over 2 dozens different hospitals in the Bay Area are sending pictures with thank you signs.   

This is what "Silicon Valley Strong" all about, taking care each other when the going gets tough.

For those who would like to donate, help or need assistance, please contact Friends of Hue Foundation at 408-755-5189 or jennydo@friendsofhue.org

Also, the website has some valuable information about available resources:

https://friendsofhue.org/

Santa Clara County Community Battles Against COVID-19

From the first reported case of virus infection on Feb 1, 2020, Santa Clara County now has over 265 cases and 8 deaths.   Even with the "shelter-in-place" order, the number of cases is rapidly rising.

People are panicking and hoarding toilet papers, paper towels, masks,  gloves, hand sanitizers, household cleaners, and all kind of dried foods.  And with a large Asian community in the Bay Area, rice is always in short supply.  Store shelves are emptied as fast they can be filled.

But what makes the situation even more dangerous is the hospitals and clinics do not have enough personal protective equipment.  Nurses and doctors at Valley Medical Center and Kaiser Hospital are desperately calling friends and relatives for donations of  N95 masks, surgical masks, hazmat suits and goggles.

All 13 clinics and hospitals in Santa Clara county have not received any new supplies of N95 masks more than a month ago.  The few remaining N95 masks are locked up and only can be released with special permission from top level administrators.  Situations normally required N95 masks are now being replaced by surgery masks.  Yet, these surgery masks are in short supply also.  All nurses in the last two weeks have been ordered to reuse their surgery masks.  They have been asked to spray IPA on the masks to disinfect them for next day wearing.

Last week, Kaiser nurses went to the streets in Fremont and San Francisco and  demonstrated demanding management to take action to provide adequate protection.

On Friday,  Santa Clara County Supervisors Cindy Chavez and Dave Cortese  sent emails to their constituents and held a press conference along with San Jose City Mayor Sam Liccardo pleading for public donations.  Assemblyman Ash Kalra also issued a statement asking the public to not hoard medical supplies. 

The majority of healthcare workers are very concerned about the resources that they will have to fight the virus pandemic.  The hospital administration in the area is planning for the estimate  that  25% of their work force will be wiped out in the next 4 weeks from either being sick as the result of not having enough protective equipment or to stay home to take care of the loved ones.


The good news is that the public has rapidly responded to the urgency.

Silicon Valley Leadership Group is spearheading  a donation drive which has so far within 24 hours gathered over 1650,000 surgical masks, 2,000 hazmat suits, 4,000 pairs of gloves, and 1,200 respirators.  Moreover, $600,000 has been raised.

Supervisor Dave Cortese's office received donation of 200 plus masks from a civil engineering company.   Donation of over 2,000 surgical masks was reported by the office of  Assemblyman Ash Kalra.

At a more local level,  community based organizations like Friends of Hue Foundation, led by the local activist and lawyer Jenny Do, are also asking for donations from PPE to food.  The foundation has volunteers to help with food delivery to those who are most vulnerable.   A good samaritan offers a small warehouse to help storage and distribution of food.

They are distributing N95 masks to Kaiser nurses (about 200 so far).  This N95 mask is  crucial in dealing with COVID-19 since they are designed to filter out the viral particles which surgical mask cannot do.

Some of the money donated are being requested to buy food for the healthcare workers, who are at the front line to treat patients of this deadly epidemic.  They also just received 40,000 pairs of gloves and other donations are rolling in.

FHF has a trained CERT team.  They are trained and certified by San Jose City Office of Emergency Management.  The 31 member team are ready to assist the community in time of crisis.  CERT is an acronym for community emergency response team and is designated to be community based volunteers to support the city / county emergency operation.

San Jose City has Silicon Valley Strong website that provide many important information and resources to cope with the crisis.   Valley Medical Center Foundation is taking PPE donations to distribute all the hospitals and clinics in the Bay Area.

During this unprecedented crisis, we are seeing the community pulling together and showing the spirit of human kindness.

For those who would like to donate, help or need assistance, please contact Friends of Hue Foundation at 408-755-5189 or jennydo@friendsofhue.org

Also, the website has some valuable information about available resources:

https://friendsofhue.org/