Officials: 21 patients not a threat
PACIFIC GROVE >> State officials on Wednesday said they will not disclose whether 21 patients housed at Asilomar Hotel and Conference Center in Pacific Grove have tested positive for the coronavirus, but are saying those individuals are highly isolated from the public and that the concern should be focused on the people who have the virus and are walking freely around the county.
Officials from the California Office of Emergency Services on Wednesday refused to say whether the Asilomar patients had tested positive, only that they were not sick enough for hospitalization. They did not return voicemails or emails requesting comment.
However, on a conference call Tuesday, they did say that the patients who tested positive could not be taken to military bases, specifically Travis Air Force Base, because Department of Defense protocols prohibit people who test positive for coronavirus from being kept at military bases.
“All the individuals have been screened by medical professionals, and because they have mild symptoms that do not require hospitalization, they cannot be quarantined at Travis Air Force Base,” the OES said in a statement. “The state is also work
ing closely with local agencies, including Monterey County and the city of Pacific Grove, to coordinate this mission and provide communication and information to the public.”
Asilomar has been named an “alternative care facility” by OES. Military bases were established as quarantined sites and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated that by definition quarantines are for healthy people.
There is at least one physician staffed at Asilomar and one person was taken to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula for treatment and has subsequently returned to Asilomar, Cal OES acknowledged.
Privately and publicly officials are asking whether it matters if the 21 people test positive because they are extremely isolated from the rest of the population, unlike those in Monterey County who are unknowingly spreading the virus. With only a limited amount of testing performed there have been two confirmed cases in the county, according to the Monterey County Health Department.
“I think it is fair to say that the patients at Asilomar are isolated,” State Sen. Bill Monning said Wednesday. “The greater concern to our community should be those who are carrying the virus but who remain undiagnosed.”
The virus that causes COVID-19 seems to be spreading easily and sustainably in the communities, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Monning noted a pair of bills that passed both houses of the state Legislature unanimously and with bipartisan support on Monday:
Assembly and Senate Bill 89 is an emergency budget bill that will authorize the expenditure of $500 million up to $1 billion for immediate health care and health care infrastructure investments. And AB/SB 117 is an education budget bill that authorizes continued ADA support for schools which would not have received state reimbursements without students present and $100 million for emergency support for schools to obtain cleansers and other products to maintain disinfected school sites.