New Dispatch from the Seattle-Area Hot Zone

 

There is a very interesting story on my favorite KOMO Web site today.  It seems that the Feds have figured out what happened to infect so many elderly patients at multiple long-term-care facilities in the Seattle area.  They discovered that staff members were not only working while sick, they were working at multiple facilities, thus carrying the virus from one nursing home to another.

Now, it is well-known that infection control is often substandard at nursing homes, and that they sometimes lack sufficient quantities of personal protective devices and equipment for staff.  That, plus the fact that many nurses and aides actually work at more than one institution to make ends meet, combined to deadly effect in this new outbreak of a highly-contagious new viral disease.

With the Washington State death toll over 65, a fairly high percentage of those deaths are nursing-home patients.  What a shame.

Published in Healthcare
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There are 14 comments.

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  1. Clavius Thatcher
    Clavius
    @Clavius

    It’s good to see that the public health authorities are doing their job to trace the outbreak.  That way we can react and prevent.

    If only the shrieking harpies in the media would focus on real stories instead of how racist the term “Chinese flu” is, we all might feel a little better.  A little.

    • #1
  2. Lilly B Coolidge
    Lilly B
    @LillyB

    Thank you for sharing this story. I think this kind of specific information is useful to all of us as we try to understand how and why this virus spreads. 

    • #2
  3. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    Those workers could hardly have known they were carriers. Did they get the virus from visitors? 

    We can only move forward from here, and try to learn and understand how this virus speeds and evolves, and figure out how to lessen the spread, and treat the sick to make them less so. 

    🙏

    • #3
  4. Snirtler Inactive
    Snirtler
    @Snirtler

    Clavius (View Comment):

    It’s good to see that the public health authorities are doing their job to trace the outbreak. That way we can react and prevent.

    If only the shrieking harpies in the media would focus on real stories instead of how racist the term “Chinese flu” is, we all might feel a little better. A little.

    Agreed. Investigating these private and public failures, e.g., LTCF health protocols & govt covid testing, would be a more valuable public service and justify their place in this world.

    • #4
  5. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Jules PA (View Comment):

    Those workers could hardly have known they were carriers. Did they get the virus from visitors?

    We can only move forward from here, and try to learn and understand how this virus speeds and evolves, and figure out how to lessen the spread, and treat the sick to make them less so.

    🙏

    Jules, there is one big issue.  These were health-care workers.  Even in a long-term-care facility, anyone dealing directly with patients should be adequately trained in infection control, beginning with not going to work when you are sick!  These people violated the cardinal rule of medical care, to do no harm.  I’m pretty sure that this has been a known issue in long-term-care forever, but these workers who took their illness to multiple facilities were potentially dooming their patients to potential illness or death.

    • #5
  6. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):
    beginning with not going to work when you are sick!

    I don’t know the details of that outbreak, but is not one of the deadly hallmarks of this virus its contagion with zero symptoms? 

    • #6
  7. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    Seattle was early on. In PA, you get quarantined for 14-days if you are on the contact trace with someone who tested positive. And usually that positive person is on the contact trace of someone else who was in quarantine, then developed symptoms, which started that contact trace. 

    There it is. You can be spreading it, with no idea that you have it. 

    • #7
  8. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Who doesn’t work while sick?  Taking time off either means no pay, no promotion, no raises, and first on the to be laid off list.

    • #8
  9. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    The Left will probably rethink some of its positions (eg open borders) – or hopefully they will.

    What about the Right? Any positions that might prove to be less socially robust than one had thought?

    • #9
  10. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    Fake John/Jane Galt (View Comment):

    Who doesn’t work while sick? Taking time off either means no pay, no promotion, no raises, and first on the to be laid off list.

    Didn’t want to “like” this, but it is true. /:

    • #10
  11. Ultron Will Inject You Now Inactive
    Ultron Will Inject You Now
    @Pseudodionysius

    There is a lot of hypothesizing and inference drawing in the article by the CDC. 

    • #11
  12. Doctor Robert Member
    Doctor Robert
    @DoctorRobert

    Washington State has 65 deaths, the national total now is 116.

    65 is more than half of 116.  56%, in fact.

    So half of the minuscule number of deaths nationwide are from one state and more than half of those are from one easily-explicated cluster.

    WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

    This is NOT a crisis.  This is a crock.  Maybe even a hoax.

    And there is nothing I can do about it.

    • #12
  13. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):

    Washington State has 65 deaths, the national total now is 116.

    65 is more than half of 116. 56%, in fact.

    So half of the minuscule number of deaths nationwide are from one state and more than half of those are from one easily-explicated cluster.

    WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

    This is NOT a crisis. This is a crock. Maybe even a hoax.

    And there is nothing I can do about it.

    So, you just know for certain, that such things as happened in WA, couldn’t happen anywhere else if there were no containment efforts etc?

    Everything is hunky dory, folks!  Nothing to see here, move along!

    Yeah.  Sure.  We all appreciate your omniscience and omnipresence.

    Not.

    • #13
  14. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    I have a grandson, 29, lives and works in Seattle. I was just told yesterday he has been in quarantine for the last 3 weeks. I don’t know the details yet if he was just exposed or actually had the virus. Don’t know yet if he is in a facility or hospital. He isn’t home. He has been working these last 2/3 years as a bar-tender to pay off massive school loans as well as medical bills from having his front teeth and the bone holding them reconstructed, and then having his teeth replace with implants. He was hoping to start graduate school, as his aim is to be a doctor.

    I’ll find out more today.

    • #14
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