California rushes to add beds for the sick

State leasing Seton Medical; looking at dorms, Navy ship

Ships. Dorms. Hospitals on the verge of closure. As the coronavirus spreads across the Bay Area and beyond, officials are scrambling to add beds for ill patients before California’s health care system is overwhelmed.

On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said his team is predicting that more than half the state’s residents — around 25.5 million people — will get COVID-19 over eight weeks. Most people likely will not require hospitalization, but the state is estimating that the number who do could require 20,000 hospital beds beyond California’s current stock of about 90,000.

To boost capacity, the state has acquired beds at Seton Medical Center in Daly City, which just weeks ago was on the verge of closure.

The governor is in talks with the University of California and California State University systems to open vacated dorms to fight the disease.

U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie told NPR he had “freed up our newest facility in Palo Alto, California, and turned that into a center that would receive those veterans who have the COVID-19.”

And Newsom has requested that a Navy hospital ship be stationed off the coast for noncoronavirus patients in an attempt to free up beds on land for those infected.

“This is really important,” said David Canepa, a San Mateo County supervisor who has pushed in recent months to keep Seton from closing. “This is purely and simply about saving lives.”

According to Canepa, the state will lease 177 of the struggling hospital’s approximately 360 beds for at least the next six months, paying an initial $5 million and then between $2.5 million and $3.2 million a month in operating expenses after that. Coronavirus patients, Canepa said, will be kept on certain floors.

“The situation here is so fluid,” he said, adding that the lease could extend beyond the initial 180 days and that traveling nurses could be brought in to help care for patients.

The current owner, Verity, de

clared bankruptcy in 2018 and, according to Canepa, the state’s use of the facility will not stop bidders from continuing to negotiate to buy the embattled hospital, which has long served the region’s lowest-income residents and acted as Daly City’s largest employer.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-san Francisco, applauded the state’s decision to lease beds at Seton.

“This is a hugely important step for the Bay Area’s capacity to support those needing medical help. Seton

Medical Center is a pillar of our community, and has a talented staff with much to give during this crisis,” Wiener said in a statement. “I applaud Governor Newsom’s decision to keep Seton open, and offer my full support through the transition.”

A spokeswoman for the local VA Sierra Pacific Network said that as of Friday midday, two veterans who tested positive for the coronavirus were receiving treatment at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. But no patients are being transferred from the facility to make accommodations for patients who have COVID-19, said the spokeswoman,

Armenthis Lester.

“The risk of transmission to other patients and staff remains low, as the veterans are being cared for in isolation by staff who are specially trained on the latest Centers for Disease Control treatment guidelines,” Lester wrote in an email, “and utilizing personal protective equipment and infection control techniques.”

The governor’s office and UC didn’t immediately respond to requests for information about the higher education system working with the governor to fight the spread of the virus.

“We are engaged with the governor and his staff, but do not have details to share at this point,” said Toni Molle, a spokeswoman for the CSU system.

In news conferences throughout the week, Newsom talked about the need to take whatever measures are necessary to limit the damage done by the coronavirus.

He has asked the federal government for help, including the use of a 1,000bed Navy hospital ship, the USNS Mercy, which is expected to be stationed in the waters near Los Angeles.

“If we meet this moment,” Newsom said Thursday night, “we can truly bend the curve.”