PUBLIC URGED TO CONSIDER HEALTH WORKERS

Vaccine doses alone not enough to turn COVID-19 tide

San Diego County will receive 28,000 doses in the first allocation of coronavirus vaccine expected to arrive mid-month, health officials announced Wednesday.

Given that two doses are required for each recipient, that’s enough vaccine to inoculate about 14,000 people, and frontline health care workers, especially those in hospitals and nursing homes, will be first in line.

People with underlying medical conditions would have second priority. Teachers, critical workers, correctional facility staff and all older adults without health care problems would come next. Children and young adults age 30 and younger would be in a third phase with the remainder of the population set as the lowest priority.

However, leaders warned that neither the first nor the second batch of doses will be enough, by themselves, to save Christmas for the thousands of already weary workers responsible for treating the increasing number of infected residents popping up across the region and the nation.

Only collective action, warned Chris Howard, chief executive officer of Sharp HealthCare, can stem the tide that has already nearly doubled the number of COVID-19 patients in local hospital beds.

The painful fact is that those recently admitted likely became infected two or three weeks ago. With the number of daily new infections reported across San Diego County in 10 of the past 14 days greater than 1,000, it is clear that an even greater surge, one significantly larger than anyone has experienced so far, is soon to arrive, Howard said.

While stressing that all local health care providers are not yet out of capacity, Howard made it clear that a workforce that has already fought the disease for 10 straight months is past fatigue and headed for burnout.

Holding a mask in one hand, the executive pleaded with the community to double down on mask wearing and social-distancing practices that remain the only way to avoid pumping even more terrible energy into the wave that everyone knows is coming.

Stretching a mask across nose and mouth, he said, is a gift for the paramedics, nurses, doctors, environmental service workers and others expected to enter the den of this particular beast daily.

“This is a pain to wear at times; I think we’re all tired of it,” Howard said. “You know what’s more of a pain? To be a COVID patient in one of our hospitals or talking to the family member of a patient who’s about to expire who they can’t be there with.

“That’s what a pain is.” It seemed clear Wednesday that many still find that message unpersuasive.

In the early evening, the county health department issued a second outbreak advisory for Awaken Church.

It came just four days after a similar notification Saturday that advised all who visited the house of worship’s location on Balboa Avenue in San Diego to get tested and quarantine for 14 days if they attended services or other indoor activities there from Nov. 15 through Nov. 22, an eightday span when an outbreak had been detected among the congregation.

On Wednesday, a similar warning appeared for Awaken’s locations in San Marcos and Chula Vista for the same eight-day span during which all three campuses, the health department said, generated 64 total cases.

While it has generally refrained from naming outbreak locations during the COVID-19 pandemic, the health department has departed from that posture in Awaken’s case, issuing public notices because it does not believe it has an accurate record of all who attended, making broad public notification through the media necessary to increase the probability of reaching all who were exposed.

So far, a county spokesman said in an email, two Awaken parishioners have been hospitalized due to coronavirus infections but none has died.

County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher pointed out that places of worship generally do have greater leeway to bring together large groups of worshippers in much larger groups than health orders allow for other types of organizations. But gatherings must be outdoors with proper separation between household groups, and mask wearing is required.

The region’s latest COVID-19 report included 1,217 new cases and 16 additional COVID-related deaths with 41 new hospitalizations listed one day after 50 appeared in Tuesday’s report, the largest single-day increase on record.

With the local death toll associated with the pandemic now at 1,035, having passed the 1,000 mark Tuesday, Fletcher pushed back against the oft-expressed desire of many to gather with their loved ones indoors this month.

“It’s important that we remind ourselves that there are more than 1,000 San Diego families who will not be spending the holidays with their family members — not because they’re making the decision to be responsible and be safe,” Fletcher said. “They’re not doing it because their family members are dead.”

Still, for many, staying away from loved ones at a time when multiple generations traditionally come together to exchange gifts and catch up is a very, very big ask, especially for a population already on edge from 10 months of being told to keep their distance from the people they care about most.

Howard said everyone closest to the virus understands that more time apart further strains already stressed family bonds.

“We appreciate your sacrifice and, believe me, we will be there to sacrifice for you in all the days ahead until we kick this virus,” Howard said.