Kern County Public Health releasing addresses of positive COVID-19 patients to local agencies

It took weeks for the Kern County Health Department to start releasing more information about where positive cases of COVID-19 were within the county. First it started with wide portions of the county broken up into sections such as Bakersfield West, Bakersfield East, the Valley, the Mountains, etc. Then, in May, officials finally releasing more detailed information such as race, gender, and zip codes. But what most people didn't know is that, since April, the Kern County Health Department has been sending a list of addresses of positive COVID-19 patients to local first responders. Jeff Drummond, an attorney out of Texas who specializes in HIPAA protections and medical record privacy, said based on guidelines from the U.S. Department of Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) the health department is allowed to disclose that information, even without the patient's permission.