Crisis center allotted $5.9M more for costs from virus
Supervisors OK $3 million for alternative care location
Marin County supervisors have appropriated an additional $5.9 million for Emergency Operations Center expenses because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Marin County Administrator Matthew Hymel reported to the Board of Supervisors that since early March, the county has incurred about $2.6 million in direct costs related to the Emergency Operations Center and short-term housing procurement. Hymel estimated that the EOC’s daily operations will cost an additional $2.3 million through the end of May.
The supervisors approved the allocation on Tuesday. It included $3 million to create an alternative care site, which is deemed necessary in the event of a surge of virus patients coming from Marin’s long-term care centers.
“Initially in March we were thinking about a surge location for local hospitals,” Angela Nicholson, assistant county administrator, told supervisors. “At this point, our county isn’t experiencing a surge. Where we are experiencing real difficulty is in our skilled-nursing facilities. We have had a number of skilled-nursing facilities that have had significant outbreaks.”
As of Tuesday, 22 residents and 25 staff members at residential care and skilled nursing centers in Marin had tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began. Currently, only one resident and six staff members are positive; these patients and staff members are spread among five sites.
Marin County does not release the names of centers where residents or staff have tested positive; it also does not release information on deaths associated with these infections. However, the Independent Journal has been able to confirm that at least seven people at four Marin facilities died after becoming infected.
Nicholson told supervisors that if a large outbreak occurs at a long-term care center, the county needs to be prepared to shut it down temporarily and move patients to an alternative site. She said the plan is to have such a site secured by Friday.
Hymel told supervisors that the cost estimates for the center range from $3.1 million to $6.4 million and will depend on the number of patients at the site. The $3 million approved by supervisors on Tuesday will cover setup costs and operational costs for caring for 25 patients over approximately two months.
The $3 million for the alternative care site and the $4.9 million for EOC operations total $7.9 million, but supervisors previously approved $2 million in spending for the EOC.
Nicholson said about $450,000 of the money spent so far has gone toward housing. The county is paying for hotel rooms to house first responders, disaster service workers and health care workers who fear they might be infected and don’t have a place to isolate from their families.
The county is also housing homeless people who are at high risk of dying should they become infected, such as people who are age 65 or older or who have other medical conditions such as lung damage or diabetes.
Nicholson said the county might also begin temporarily housing people at high medical risk who live in crowded circumstances. She said the county might even house some lower risk people who live in crowded settings and perform essential services that increase their risk of becoming infected, such as grocery workers.
Nicholson said the EOC is also working with the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank to ensure that all Marin residents have access to food during this crisis. County employees, in their role as disaster service workers, are doing work once performed by volunteers, such as bagging groceries at food banks. Many of those volunteers are unavailable because they are at high risk due to their age.
The EOC is also working to help implement a new state program announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom last week that provides funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state to pay restaurants to produce and deliver meals to low-income seniors who are sheltering in their homes.
Hymel told supervisors that he expects nearly all of the $7.9 million spent on emergency services by the county to be reimbursed by the state and federal government, mostly through FEMA.
Nicholson said, “We’re being very cautious. We’ve worked hand in hand with the state and FEMA to make sure anything we would set up would receive full reimbursement.”
Hymel said the county could draw from its reserves to cover a potential local match requirement of 6.25%, which would amount to about $500,000.