- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
Public Health officer: Local monitoring underway for COVID-19, no positive tests
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19 – the illness caused by the novel coronavirus – as have some counties, including Lake’s neighbor, Mendocino.
Health officials reported that the number of confirmed cases worldwide is nearly 114,000. State health officials said Monday that California has 133 confirmed cases.
Dr. Gary Pace, Lake County’s Public Health officer, said the illness is like the common cold. The symptoms of most concern to health care providers are fever, cough and shortness of breath.
Pace has been making appearances at meetings around the county to update the community.
Last week he participated in a Kelseyville town hall and also spoke to the city councils for Clearlake and Lakeport.
He’s due to give the Board of Supervisors an update on Tuesday morning.
What he told community members last week – that no local cases have been confirmed – held true on Monday, he said.
“All of the area health officers have agreed to not talk about specific numbers of people being tested at this stage, but I can say that we are monitoring some people that are considered at risk and no one has tested positive,” Pace told Lake County News, adding he will make an announcement if there is a positive case in Lake County.
Last week, state officials announced that expanded test capability had made 24 million more Californians eligible for free medically necessary COVID-19 testing.
The California Department of Public Health's state laboratory in Richmond and 18 other public health department laboratories now have tests for the virus that causes COVID-19. Seventeen of them are currently conducting tests, with the others coming online soon, officials said.
On the local level, Pace said there are two pathways for testing at this point.
They include the Sonoma County Public Health Lab, which is one of the 19 labs statewide that are testing under the expanded capability announced last week.
“Also, commercial testing just became available through Quest and Labcorp labs. They will pick up specimens at clinics and hospitals and send them to their regional labs,” Pace said.
“Both of these pathways have some limitation in terms of the capacity of the labs, but we will see how well they are able to manage demand,” he added.
Pointing to cases in other parts of the region, including Sonoma County, Pace said that it’s hard to know just how many people might be infected because, up to that point, testing had been done on a very limited basis.
Antiviral treatment in clinical study
In a March 6 video, Dr. Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Health offered insight into the coronavirus and some preventative measures.
Blumberg said at this point since no vaccine has been developed, the treatment is supportive care, like intravenous fluids and supplemental oxygen and, in more severe cases, the use of a ventilator.
Blumberg said there are experimental treatments that are now being studied, such as an antiviral called Remdesivir that originally was developed for ebola. It’s had promising results when used in China and is now being used in some US cases.
The National Institutes of Health said a randomized, controlled clinical trial of Remdesivir in hospitalized adults diagnosed with COVID-19 is underway at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. That is the first clinical trial of an experimental treatment for COVID-19 in the United States.
Officials said the first trial participant is an American who was repatriated after being quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that docked in Yokohama, Japan and volunteered to participate in the study.
In his remarks to the city councils last week, Pace explained that an approved vaccine will likely require a year to a year and a half to develop.
Local health care providers preparing
In work and school situations, it’s recommended that sick people stay home. Pace said there are no indications that schools need to be closed, but he suggested canceling nonessential travel.
In some areas, large events are being canceled as a way of protecting people and stopping the virus’ spread, he said.
While Pace said he didn’t think that needed to happen in Lake County, with seniors being the most vulnerable to COVID-19, the Silver Foundation announced that its fourth annual Senior Summit, which had been scheduled for April 4, is being postponed due to concerns about the virus, as Lake County News has reported.
Pace said he’s very concerned about the senior population, and he’s reaching out to senior centers and nursing homes to offer them information on preparation.
Describing the COVID-19 virus to the Lakeport City Council, Pace said, “This is a brand new one. We don't have immunity to it. The concern is, it’s ramping up.”
He said viruses tend not to show up in warm weather. In China, where the first cases were seen, infections are now dropping off. But they don’t know if it’s because of people developing immunity or if it's following a seasonal pattern.
He told the Clearlake City Council that so far there hasn’t been much reported COVID-19 activity in the Southern Hemisphere, where it’s summertime.
Pace said he and his department are working with local health providers, including hospitals, clinics, ambulance services and other emergency medical services.
“Everybody is very professional and on their game,” he told the Clearlake City Council, adding that it’s been reassuring to him.
The county, he noted, has two small hospitals for a good-sized population. “If a lot of people got sick really fast, it would be a challenge,” he said.
One of the biggest limiting factors are the number of ventilators available at Sutter Lakeside Hospital and Adventist Clear Lake Hospital. Pace estimated that there are a total of eight – four each – between the two hospitals.
That, along with the number of available health care workers, could put a strain on the local health care system should a large number of COVID-19 cases occur in Lake County, Pace said.
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