Several hospital workers infected with Covid-19 due to overcapacity

Seven emergency department workers at St. Louise Regional Hospital recently tested positive for Covid-19 because hospitals and other people throughout the county were working beyond their capabilities.

According to Joy Alexiou, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Health System, more than 80 people work in the emergency department at South County Hospital.

Hospital staff and leaders are working with the County Public Health Service and the California Public Health Service to review cases, and staff who test positive are required for the duration of contact tracing. She said she was quarantined.

According to Alexiou, all staff working with patients should be tested for Covid-19 every two weeks, but as a result of recent cases, emergency department staff are tested more often at least every three days. It has been. A quick daily test of emergency department personnel is also conducted before the shift begins.

Alexiou added that more than 80% of healthcare professionals working at St. Louise Regional Hospital received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

At a press conference on December 31, Dr. Marco Randazzo, an emergency department doctor at St. Louis Hospital and O’Connor Hospital, said that patients who usually need treatment in the intensive care unit were urgently needed because the ICU bed was full. He said he was being treated in the department.

He said patients can only be transferred to the ICU when a Covid patient dies. As of December 31, 28 ICU beds were available throughout the county, equivalent to 8 percent of capacity, according to health officials.

“We simply don’t have a room,” Randazzo said. “Our healthcare professionals are constantly exposed and infected while continuing to care for our loved ones.”

As of December 31, the county’s healthcare providers were in multiple county entities such as Kaiser Permanente and Satter Health, in addition to 40,605 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines and 54,200 Modana vaccines, officials said. I am receiving additional deliveries directly. .. Additional shipments are scheduled for next week, including a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Thousands of healthcare professionals and first-time health care providers have been vaccinated since mid-December, and those who receive the first dose of the vaccine will receive a second dose next week in the Covid-19 test and Dr. Martifenstershake, the county’s vaccine director, said.

The county is currently in Phase 1a of vaccine deployment involving healthcare professionals and residents of long-term care facilities. Once vaccinated, proceed to Phase 1b, which includes front-line workers such as law enforcement agencies, agricultural workers, and grocery store staff. People over the age of 75 are also included in this phase.

Fenstersheib said it would take “months” for the county to move to Phase 2. In Phase 2, anyone not included in the previous phase can be vaccinated.

“Because we are vaccinated people, you still need to wear your mask and still have to comply with all social distance requirements,” he said. “Vaccination of some people is not the time to take off your mask and behave as if the virus is controlled.”

According to county health data, Gilroy reported 564 new Covid-19 cases between December 24-31, while Morgan Hill reported 223 cases during the same period.

According to the Santa Clara County Medical Inspector-Corona office, 51 South County residents have died in Covid-19 since the pandemic began in March.

Of the South County deaths, 36 lived in Gilroy and 15 lived in Morgan Hill. The coroner’s office provided the number on December 31 at the request of the newspaper.

Fifty-one deaths in South County accounted for approximately 7.5 percent of the 673 Covid-19 deaths reported throughout the county as of 31 December.

Michael Moore contributed to this report.