Shelter at home ordered statewide
Worst-case projections — 56% infected in 8 weeks; 3 Bay Area senior facilities report cases
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued a statewide shelter-in-place order for all Californians amid a grim projection that 56% of Californians — 25.5 million people — could be infected with coronavirus in eight weeks if no efforts are made to control the spread of the disease.
“It is time for all of us to recognize we need to do more to meet this moment,” said Newsom, who has also asked the federal government for more than $1 billion to help California fight the outbreak.
Newsom acknowledged in an address that his projections assume the state makes no efforts to control the spread of the disease, when in fact his new stayat-home order includes significant actions, such as banning assemblies and closing” many businesses, that he predicted Twill “bend the curve.” Experts said the projection outlines a worst- case scenario.
The statewide shelter-in-place order comes three days after millions of Bay Area residents were ordered to stay home by county public health officers; Newsom said the new rules for the state are very similar to those here.
The governor’s announcements came on a tense day for the Bay Area, as three senior-living facilities reported that residents or staff-
ers had tested positive for the virus, including five at Atria Senior Living in Burlingame, and nurses took to the streets to speak out against unsafe working conditions.
Newsom’s stunning projection tracks with other mathematical models of the outbreak that also assume no action to mitigate the spread of the virus. A model from The Harvard Global Health Institute estimates that 60% of adult Californians could become infected, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has cited a national range of 49% to 65%. Applied to California, that would mean 19.2 to 25.68 million people could be infected.
The CDC is said to have estimated how much various social restrictions might reduce growth of the virus, but those estimates have not yet been made public.
Arthur Reingold, division head of epidemiology and biostatistics at UC Berkeley, said the governor’s projections were “plausible” though he called them “planning for the worst.” He also cautioned that such figures represent the total number of people infected, including those who may never show any symptoms nor need to be hospitalized.
Still, he said the numbers are going to keep rising and things will get worse before they get better.
“Even if most people don’t get really sick or even sick at all, and even just a small fraction of that do get infected and need to be hospitalized or die, that is a really big number,” he said. “We need to plan for something as dire as that in terms of hospital beds, testing, ventilators, to try and convince people that this is a serious problem.”
Newsom said his projections assume a 20% hospitalization rate. He announced some actions Thursday night to stabilize and expand hospital capacity, saying the state has acquired Seton Medical Center in Daly City, a 357-bed facility threatened with closure by the bankruptcy of its owner. He also raised the possibility of using college dorm rooms, many of which have been emptied by shelter-in-place orders, for coronavirus patients.
By Thursday, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in California totaled more than 800, rising 21% overnight, the governor said, and the state’s coronavirusrelated deaths had reached 16. Newsom and health officials have said the numbers will continue to rise as testing expands. As of Wednesday evening, about 17,000 tests had been conducted within the state, according to the state, with 10,000 results still pending.
The numbers also rose in the Bay Area where three senior living facilities confirmed new cases on Thursday, including a resident at Silver Oaks Memory Care in Menlo Park, a staffer who tested positive at the Forum in Cupertino and five confirmed cases of residents at Atria Burlingame Assisted Living and Memory Care. Results are pending for another resident at the Atria facility, and all six residents have been hospitalized.
“Our primary concern right now is supporting our residents and staff,” Mike Gentry, senior vice president of Care for Atria Burlingame Assisted Living and Memory Care, said in a statement. “We remain committed to sharing updates with our community as they become available.”
Hoping to avoid a threat to Bay Area jails — where social distancing, good hygiene and general health already were formidable challenges — officials are working to release as many inmates as they can without compromising public safety. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office has released more than 300 inmates this week alone. Santa Clara County officials said they also had reduced the jail population by 300 in the past 10 days.
On Thursday, the number of reported cases in San Mateo County rose to 89, with nine new infections reported. San Francisco reported 70 cases, up from 51, while Contra Costa and Alameda reported 42 and 34, respectively.
Santa Clara County — the hardest-hit in the state — recorded 14 new cases Thursday, for a total of 189, including six deaths. With a limited supply of testing, the county announced plans to give emergency personnel — police, fire, ambulance and other medical staff — expedited COVID-19 testing if they show symptoms of the virus, primarily fever, cough and shortness of breath.
In a separate letter to federal lawmakers Thursday, Newsom requested $1 billion to help the state prepare for a surge in COVID-19 cases. He asked for additional money to increase unemployment insurance benefits and Medicaid coverage and to support homeless programs and small businesses.
His request also included funding for additional personal protective equipment, ventilators and tents to accommodate more potential COVID-19 patients and to activate state-run hospitals, deploy mobile hospitals and provide other housing options for those who may not be able to properly self-quarantine or social distance in their current living situations.
“Without a substantial economic intervention from the federal government, many of these middle-class households may fall into poverty,” Newsom wrote in the letter.
The need for more testing and supplies is growing more apparent every day.
At lunchtime on Thursday, dozens of nurses and staff at Kaiser Permanente in Fremont held a protest, demanding proper protection while caring for potential and confirmed COVID-19 patients.
Veronica Cambra, a nurse in the intensive care unit, said she and her colleagues are wearing the same flimsy surgical mask and plastic gown all day, reusing them while working with different patients because supplies are short.
“How can we as nurses care for patients with infectious diseases without our personal protective equipment?” Cambra said. “By protecting nurses, Americans are protecting their families’ and friends’ lives.”
The economic fallout continued Thursday as the Department of Labor said weekly unemployment insurance claims rose 33% nationwide, to 281,000. California had 58,208 claims, a 34% increase over last week.
South Bay restaurateur Randy Musterer has had to lay off most of his employees, temporarily shutter the San Jose location of Sushi Confidential and turn the Campbell restaurant into a takeout and delivery operation only.
“As we know this is all highly unusual. None of us could ever have thought something like this would happen and I think the scariest part is the unknown,” Musterer said. “I just can’t even explain it right now. I laugh and cry 10 times in the same day, that’s just how emotional this is.”