Hayward COVID-19 call center moving to Monday through Saturday schedule

HAYWARD - Hayward officials said on Friday that their COVID-19 hotline call center is moving to a six-days-a-week schedule with live call takers available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, effective immediately.

People who call the hotline on Sundays will be able to leave messages that will get a response as quickly as possible.

Hayward officials established the hotline, which is (510) 583-4949, and call center on March 20 to provide the community with reliable, up-to-date information about the new coronavirus, the local impact of the public health emergency and how the city is responding.

The call center is staffed by a multilingual group of city employee volunteers and workers who've been reassigned from other duties.

Until now, it has been operating almost continuously from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week for 42 consecutive days.

As of Thursday the center had taken and responded to 4,922 calls.

Hayward officials said one purpose of the hotline is to reduce demand on their 911 emergency call center.

They said another goal is to provide residents, regardless of the language they speak or their immigration status, trustworthy information and connections to the services and help they may need.

Hayward officials say that before residents call the hotline they are encouraged to first go online to the city's COVID-19 Resource Portal at https://www.hayward-ca.gov/discover/news/apr20/covid-19-resource-portal and COVID-19 Updates and Response Information web page at https://www.hayward-ca.gov/covid-19 for current information at a list of links to other reliable resources.