Solano County ‘taking this situation seriously,’ declares emergency for coronavirus case
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Solano County on Thursday became the latest California county to declare a state of emergency over the coronavirus. The declaration comes a day after UC Davis Medical Center officials announced a Solano County resident being treated at the Sacramento hospital is the first-in-the-nation “community spread” case of the virus.
“We are taking this situation seriously and are taking steps necessary to protect the health and safety of Solano County residents,” said Dr. Bela Matyas, Solano County Health Officer, in a statement Thursday afternoon. “It is important to recognize that we have moved from containment to mitigation. We are investigating potential exposures and ensuring that proper evaluation and care are provided if they become sick.”
The woman is the first person in the U.S. to obtain the virus through community transmission – not after traveling or via close contact with anyone infected with the virus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Wednesday.
State health officials addressing reporters with Gov. Gavin Newsom called the new case a “turning point” in the outbreak’s evolution in the U.S.
Hours before the Solano declaration, Newsom addressed the case and the aggressive attempts to trace down and debrief the patient’s contacts even as a clearer picture of the patient emerged.
The patient apparently brought herself to NorthBay VacaValley Hospital Feb. 15. She was not immediately tested for the virus under the CDC guidelines, but NorthBay staff inserted a tube in the woman’s lungs to assist with breathing, which could increase the risk of exposure to the virus, The Post reported.
The Vacaville hospital where the woman was initially treated was being inspected for infection.
At a Thursday afternoon news conference in Fairfield, health officials said they were aggressively evaluating and identifying multiple hospital personnel who were exposed to the patient. An unknown number of hospital staffers were placed in isolation, while others were under quarantine, the officials said.
Aimee Brewer, president of NorthBay Healthcare, said in a statement Thursday, that NorthBay “launched a meticulous tracing of anyone in our Vacaville hospital who may have had contact with that patient.”
Those staffers found to be at moderate or high risk were asked to stay home and monitor themselves for signs of COVID-19, Brewer said.
Newsom along with the state’s health officer, Sonia Angell, and Mark Ghaly, the state’s health and human services secretary, would not disclose where the patient or the people whom she came in contact with lived or worked.
But Newsom described an aggressive effort to debrief her contacts.
“We’re doing as we have in many situations like this. We’re engaging closely with that community,” Newsom said. “In real time, they are being interviewed. This is a very detailed protocol.”
Ghaly said at the news conference that the woman was in her community for “a number of days and then in the course of her care” before being transferred to Sacramento.
“We’re working very closely with the health care systems (to determine) what community exposure existed,” Ghaly said.
The woman arrived, intubated and on a ventilator, at UC Davis Medical Center.
But it was not until Wednesday that she was confirmed to be infected with COVID-19, UC Davis medical officials said, because the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for COVID-19 and tests were not immediately administered for the virus.
Solano County health officials stressed the risk to residents remains low, but enacted the emergency declaration to ratchet up its response to the virus and its ability to call upon local, state and federal agencies for help.
Solano County followed San Francisco and Orange County, which declared a state of emergency on Tuesday in response to the growing outbreak.
The county has also thrown its support behind the city of Costa Mesa, now in a court battle with the federal government over plans to convert a one-time residential and care facility into a quarantine location to potentially house coronavirus patients.
The county is preparing to file a friend of the court brief to sit alongside a federal court’s temporary restraining order to block the quarantine plans.
Newsom declined to comment on the Costa Mesa legal action, but said other locations are also in the state’s sights.
“We are in litigation in real time on (Costa Mesa), but we already have protocols,” Newsom said. “We have pre-identified sites all across the state.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 4:29 PM.
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