Kaiser fined amid probe of outbreak
As multiple agencies investigate the source of the coronavirus outbreak among at least 60 Kaiser Permanente San Jose workers that has now led to a $43,000 fine against the hospital, everyone wants to know: could all this suffering really have been caused by one employee in a Christmas costume trying to spread holiday cheer?
“We want to support the Christmas tree person,” said a San Jose man, whose 87-year- old mother tested positive for coronavirus little more than a week after she fell down and was taken to the south San Jose emergency room on Christmas Day.
Although sympathies may lie with the well-intentioned woman who bounced through the Emergency Department that morning in a battery- operated, inflatable tree costume with a big red nose, coronavirus experts say that while there are many factors to consider, it’s entirely possible she could have been a super spreader. Not only was the woman probably at her most contagious just before she showed symptoms, and ultimately tested positive, but the fan in the ventilated costume likely spread the virus farther.
“Some of the people may have been incubating already,” UC San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford said of other hospital employees who were infected. “This may not all be laid at this poor woman’s feet.”
Numerous questions remain — including why Kaiser didn’t immediately notify the Santa Clara County Health Department of the outbreak. The department said Thursday that it found out after Kaiser issued a news release Jan. 3. The hospital has been fined $1,000 for each of the initial cases, County Executive Jeff Smith said Thursday.
“There are reports that people felt symptoms very early in the process — it’s a little surprising to hear that,” Smith said, noting that some hospital workers felt sick beginning Dec. 27 and a hospital receptionist died a week later. “It’s also a question mark that if everyone was wearing PPE, why did it spread so fast?”
Not only are Kaiser and the Santa Clara County Public Health Department investigating, but so is the California Department of Public Health, which is trying to determine whether there is more than one source of the outbreak.
“There are investigations going on right now including gene tracing,”
Smith said, “trackers of the particular virus to see where it looks like it came from.”
Investigators are also interviewing employees and getting a variety of accounts that are difficult to verify, he said. Some workers say they had symptoms earlier than would be expected, he said. Others suggested Covid patients in the emergency department were not properly isolated. Kaiser did not immediately respond to a question about isolation protocols or about the fine levied against it.
Kaiser acknowledged that before the outbreak, tests were available to employees but were optional. Since the outbreak, however, “our infectious disease specialists are strongly recommending that employees get tested,” Kaiser said in a statement this week.