Expect more Sacramento coronavirus cases in the next few days, county health chief warns
Sacramento County’s top health official says he expects a few of the UC Medical Center employees exposed to the coronavirus last week to test positive themselves in the coming days.
That’s not as alarming as it may sound, Peter Beilenson, county health services director, said on Friday. Those employees, if infected, stand a good likelihood that they will not become sick or will only be mildly ill, and may not need to be treated.
“I expect there will be a few positives, probably asymptomatic,” Beilenson said. He said he bases that prediction on early data indicating 80 percent of people infected by the new virus have mild symptoms or none at all.
Numerous health care workers at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento and a hospital in Vacaville have recently been tested for coronavirus. Those test kits have been sent to labs approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the results take three to four days to come back. That means health officials should know soon if more people in the Sacramento region were infected.
Beilenson said the virus’s death rate probably appears to be inflated in part because many in China who have the mild symptoms likely are not being counted as having it, and because the Chinese health system is overwhelmed and struggling to aid some of the more seriously affected patients. The virus was first identified in China and has spread widely there.
Of 84,000 people who have contracted the disease as of Friday worldwide, 2,900 have died and 37,000 have recovered. The rate of increase of new cases in China has eased off in recent days, according to data published by Johns Hopkins University.
Incidences of the virus so far are minimal in the United States. Federal health officials counted just 62 as of Friday, 44 of them from one cruise ship.
Washington state health officials on Saturday morning announced the first known coronavirus death in the U.S., a patient in the Seattle area.
Beilenson, in frequent contact with UC Davis Medical Center officials, said about two dozen hospital employees are in home isolation after being in contact with a coronavirus patient from Solano who has been in treatment at the medical center on Stockton Boulevard since last week.
Swab test results are expected back in a few days. If some test positive, but are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, they will be told to continue isolating themselves at their home until the 14-day period of contagiousness has passed.
Beilenson is among those predicting the coronavirus will eventually take its place “among the constellation of diseases” in the world that people will deal with like they do other colds and flu.
“I think there will be more cases. That is not a horrible thing,” he said. “Once the disease gets into the population, with so many mild symptoms, common cold-like symptoms, people will be spreading it unbeknownst to them. It gets it to be more a common variety.”
In total, more than 100 employees of three Northern California hospitals are believed to have been exposed. In addition to those at the Vacaville hospital and UC Davis Medical Center, another three employees recently were sent home from Kaiser Permanente-South in Sacramento after potential exposure to the virus, according to Rep. John Garamendi.
Solano County Health Officer Dr. Bela Matyas also expects more cases to emerge.
“The best guess is that there are people who are not showing symptoms, but, are, nevertheless, infected. That’s a very normal way for diseases to spread,” Matyas said. “To public health officials, this is what disease does. The issue is that it’s not alarming, but we have to move to the next phase.”
That not only means testing and screening, but also being more rigorous at the hospital level, as Matyas said, to “universally assume the possibility” that a patient seeking care and has flu- or cold-like symptoms may carry the virus.
Mystery patient
The mystery patient at UC Davis Medical Center has been the center of national attention and politicized debate since officials at the center announced on Wednesday that they had what was believed to be the first coronavirus patient in the U.S. with no known provenance for the illness.
The woman’s identity has not been revealed, nor have any other identifying features, such as age.
Federal health officials on Friday said they have joined with Solano County officials in a continuing search for people the woman has come into contact with, both to see if they can track down where she got the virus, and also to monitor people she came into contact with prior to her treatment.
The woman reportedly was admitted to the NorthBay VacaValley Hospital, a small hospital near the Vacaville outlet centers, on Feb. 15 with cold or flu symptoms. She was transferred to the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento on Feb. 19 due to the seriousness of her condition. Tests taken on Feb. 23 showed that she was suffering from the coronavirus.
“We are looking at every hour of hallway camera to verify visitors who signed in and were badged went into that room,” NorthBay VacaValley hospital vice president Steve Huddleston said. “We’re double-checking and ensuring we’ve identified everyone.”
Woodcreek High School family self-quarantines
A family with ties to Woodcreek High School has self-quarantined at home as a precaution after possibly contacting the patient now being treated for coronavirus at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. Roseville Joint Union High School District officials made the announcement Friday in a letter to students and families.
District officials said they have no plans to cancel classes at the high school and will not unless told to by CDC officials.
93 quarantined in Solano County
So far, 93 people have been identified. Of those, 82 people without coronavirus symptoms are under home quarantine, instructed to monitor their temperatures, cough and congestion for the flu-like symptoms that could signal COVID-19.
Eleven more who are showing cold or flu-like symptoms have been told to isolate themselves at home away from family members and other contact and have been tested for the virus.
Test results are expected “in the next day or two,” county public health officer Dr. Bela Matyas said Friday.
Solano County and California state officials are teaming with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, interviewing patient’s contacts at the hospital and in the community during the three-day window the woman likely could have spread the illness.
Contacting family and co-workers were relatively easy, Matyas said. Finding other contacts outside that circle is more difficult. “But it has to be done,” Matyas said.
Meantime, the first group of hospital workers who came into contact with the patient on Feb. 15 is nearing the end of their 14-day quarantine, Huddleston said.
The National Nurses United union on Friday said this week’s events in Northern California show that U.S. health facilities are not prepared to deal with the coronavirus and that CDC testing policies are lagging. The group said that 36 registered nurses are among those sent home from Northern California hospitals after exposure to the virus.
“These ... health care workers, who are needed now more than ever, have instead been sidelined,” the group said in a press statement. “Lack of preparedness will create an unsustainable national health care staffing crisis.”
The group said that nurses at University of California medical centers have met four times with hospital leaders since Jan. 28, pressing for more precautions to prepare for the coronavirus.
“We know that we can be successful in getting all our hospitals prepared to control the spread of this virus,” said Bonnie Castillo, executive director of National Nurses United. “We are committed to working with hospitals and state and federal agencies to be ready. But nurses and health care workers need optimal staffing, equipment, and supplies to do so.”
The nurses’ group said a survey of their members found that only 73 percent report that they have access to N95 respirators on their units.
This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 4:33 PM.