Coronavirus updates: California woman may be first US death; world nears 3 million infections
As the coronavirus continues to cut a path through the most vulnerable populations in America, advocates are looking to possible reform in nursing homes, which have been hit hard by the pandemic.
The Sacramento Bee spoke with people who have been locked out of nursing homes where their loved ones are being treated, some with life-threatening illnesses, as a precaution to keep out any possible vectors of infection.
The pandemic has only exacerbated the feelings of loneliness that is common among nursing home residents, and some reformists say the essential structure of nursing homes is fundamentally flawed.
“This should cause some reflection on how we do long-term care in this country generally,” said Tony Chicotel, staff attorney for the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. “Putting people in large facilities, and in some cases, warehousing them, in large facilities where there’s not a lot of connection to the outside world is just the wrong model.”
Others point out that a lack of adequate funding has left medical staff at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities struggling to acquire protective gear for staff and patients.
“Do we have a good system? We don’t,” said Jessica Lehman, executive director of the San Francisco-based Senior and Disability Action. “We don’t have a good system of having enough personal care attendants or caregivers to do the work, people who are paid enough that want to do this work so that it can be sustainable.”
Coronavirus by the numbers
The world is nearing another grim threshold.
Nearly 3 million people have been infected by coronavirus across the globe as of late Sunday afternoon, according to data provided by Johns Hopkins University, a feat which illustrates the high morbidity of the virus.
On April 15, less than two weeks ago, the world hit the 2 million mark. Two weeks before that, on April 2, it was 1 million.
Thus far, the virus has killed 206,000 people. More than 863,000 people have recovered after infection.
The United States accounts for about a third of the total number of COVID-19 cases, with 963,000 as of Sunday afternoon. In the U.S., more than 54,000 people have died due to the virus and 106,000 have recovered.
New York is by far the worst off among the states. More than 288,000 positive tests results have been received by state health officials, and 22,000 people have been killed by COVID-19.
California has seen almost 43,000 cases of coronavirus, and 1,706 people have been killed by the virus, according to Johns Hopkins.
California currently has fewer cases than Illinois, which clocks in at nearly 44,000, but more than the Netherlands, with 38,000.
As of Sunday morning, Sacramento County reported 1,037 cases of coronavirus and 41 deaths. Most of these cases stem from the city of Sacramento, the largest population center in the county. The city accounts for 578 cases and 22 deaths.
Placer County reported 141 cases and eight deaths, while Yolo County reported 161 cases and 13 deaths and El Dorado County reported 42 cases and no deaths.
California woman believed to be first U.S. coronavirus death
A Santa Clara County woman is now believed to be the first known U.S. patient to die of COVID-19.
Patricia Dowd, 57, of San Jose died in her home on Feb. 6 when a valve in her heart ruptured, according to her autopsy report, posted Saturday by the San Francisco Chronicle.
A forensic pathologist who reviewed the report spoke with The Mercury News and said that her heart muscle had been infected, causing the rupture.
Officials initially suspected she had the flu, but are now saying that she had coronavirus.
Lockdown measures didn’t come in the Bay Area until nearly six weeks after Dowd’s death, and the first publicly acknowledged case in the U.S. appeared in Solano County in March.
“If we had understood then that people were already dying … we probably would have acted earlier than we did,” said Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody at a Wednesday press briefing.
ACLU sues state over COVID-19 threat to inmates
The American Civil Liberties Union filed two lawsuits against California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Friday in an attempt to lower jail and juvenile hall populations and stay transfers to ICE facilities due to the potential threat of coronavirus in corrections facilities.
The virus has infected 167 inmates and 115 staff across the state prison system as of Sunday, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The California Institution for Men in Chino has seen more cases than anywhere else, and reported the first death of an inmate due to COVID-19 last week.
Although Newsom halted transfers into state prisons for a period of 30 days, and granted early releases for 3,500 inmates, the ACLU said in its lawsuits that not enough had been done to protect inmates, and alleged that maintaining current population levels was unconstitutional.
“Lacking infrastructure for physical distancing and without vigilant hygiene, California’s jails and juvenile facilities are at grave risk of becoming petri dishes for rampant spread of the virus,” one suit said. “Once the virus enters a jail, the movement of staff in and out means that walls and razor wire will not slow or stop the viral spread. Outbreaks at local jails and juvenile facilities threaten to tax the broader community’s health care system beyond capacity.”
A hidden danger during the pandemic?
Heading to the grocery store for some dinner ingredients? If you’ve got your mask on and apply a little hand sanitizer after, you’re safe, right? Think again.
Lurking in the meal preparation process is the ever-present danger of a hot stove.
The UC Davis Medical Center has seen a nearly sixfold increase in burn patients with injuries related to home cooking.
“Those injuries were all serious enough for emergency care and, in some cases, hospitalization and surgery,” the hospital said in a news release.
We’re all at home and a lot of restaurants are closed. We can’t all be gourmet chefs.
“They’re cooking with grease and the grease catches on fire, and they either try to put it out with water which doesn’t work, or they catch on fire, or they try to run outside with the pot and they spill the grease on themselves,” said Dr. Tina Palmieri, a surgeon and chief of the hospital’s burn center. “It’s easy to forget the kitchen can be a dangerous place, especially now when so many people are learning to cook, cooking more often or trying new things, and when there are so many distractions like other household members and even kids and pets roaming through the kitchen.”
Palmieri said that the average cost for burn treatment runs about $50,000 — which could be used to get a quarantine’s worth of takeout instead.
What is COVID-19? How is the coronavirus spread?
Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within 6 feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby. The CDC says it’s possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”
Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Most develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.
This story was originally published April 26, 2020 at 11:33 AM.
