In a bid to dramatically boost the number of health care workers fighting the deadly coronavirus spreading across the Bay Area and beyond, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday a plan to temporarily bring both recently retired healthcare workers and students who are about to graduate as doctors and nurses into the workforce.
Newsom’s announcement came the same day as Bay Area health officials confirmed that they would be extending the region’s stay-at-home order until at least the end of April.
As part of a new temporary executive order set to last through June, hospitals will be able to shift their staffing ratios and licensing requirements will be eased. Newsom urged those in medical professions to “step up and sign up” at healthcorps.ca.gov.
“We are very, very hopeful with this effort that we will see a surge of individuals to be paid and compensated to participate in the workforce and distributed throughout our care delivery system,” Newsom said.
Newsom joined nearly a dozen governors across the country, including in New York, Florida, Texas and Virginia, who have moved to loosen regulations in recent days to allow recent retirees and nursing students to join the workforce and meet the increased demand on the nation’s healthcare system.
Public health officials and hospital systems across the nation are preparing for a surge in patients and scrambling to keep enough staff on hand to provide care.
In California, the numbers are already beginning to tick up.
As of Monday, there were more than 6,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 132 deaths related to the disease, according to the total cumulative cases as reported by the counties. Due to a “reporting delay,” confirmed COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County spiked by more than 200 on Monday, bringing the total to 848 confirmed cases and 28 coronavirus-related deaths.
State officials report that 1,432 people have been hospitalized due to the disease — or roughly double the number from four days ago. And there are 597 people in intensive care unit beds — or about triple the 200 who were in those beds four days ago.
San Francisco officials announced on Monday that an outbreak at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, a 65-acre long-term care facility that is home to more than 750 of the city’s most vulnerable residents, had worsened as nine staff members and two residents have tested positive for the virus. Infection control nurses and epidemiologists from the state and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been sent to San Francisco to help deal with the outbreak, officials said.
“The situation will escalate,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said at a virtual news conference Monday. “…I’m grateful for what we’ve received but it’s not going to be enough when it comes to Laguna Honda Hospital.”
While California has 766,000 medical professionals, the state has the capacity to increase ranks by at least 37,000 professionals by enlisting those who recently retired or are in the process of getting their medical licenses and degrees, according to the governor.
“The next few weeks are going to be critical in the state of California,” Newsom said. “In the next few weeks, we’re going to be looking to flex and surge and do more together to meet this moment.”
The announcement comes as welcome news for some graduating nursing students, who had raised concerns that they might not be able to graduate after hospitals cut their hours in the wake of the coronavirus. Under Newsom’s order, depending on how far in their training they are, these students would either be able to get fully licensed or return to clinical rotations as students after the surge in patients is over.
“Who better than those folks who are really close to being done to bring into the workforce now to essentially continue their clinical training with the help of experienced nurses or other health professionals,” said California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly.
Newsom also said finding enough “PPE,” or personal protective equipment for medical workers on the front lines continues to be a challenge. As of Monday, the governor said, the state had distributed 32.9 million N95 masks, adding that more PPE comes in “every couple of days.”
Still, he implored residents with even broken or half-complete ventilators to reach out.
“We’ll take ’em, folks,” he said, adding that Silicon Valley companies like Bloom Energy, which fixed and distributed broken ventilators from the federal stockpile, are working “miracles.”
In a live-streamed interview shortly after the press conference with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, Newsom said, “If there’s any anxiety I have on the supply-side of things, it’s the vents.”
The state, he added, had identified roughly 4,500 of the 10,000 ventilators it expects to need in the coming weeks. The state has also ordered 101 million more N95 masks, he said. Zuckerberg and Chan have said they will commit $25 million in stipends to help health care workers with childcare costs, transportation and hotels for those isolated from their families.
As Bay Area officials announced the extension of the region’s stay-at-home order on Monday, one Californian took to social media to tell her personal story of COVID-19 and remind residents to heed the precautionary measures instituted by public health officials.
Adrienne Hopper Williams, of Los Angeles, wants the death of her 81-year-old mother to be a “wake-up call to anyone who may still be reluctant to accept COVID-19’s danger. Hopper Williams’ mother, Barbara Johnson Hopper, of Oakland, died in isolation at a hospital on March 26.
“You do not want your loved one to die like this — with people who have to cover every inch of their bodies to come and care for them — not being able to hold their hand and be with them when they take their final breath,” Williams wrote on Facebook. “… Take heed, I would have never in a million years thought that something like this could happen to my family. But it did. And it can happen to yours, too, if you are not safe. Stay home. Don’t let this be your story, too!”
The governor declined during his press conference to go into detail on some of his team’s modeling regarding how many Californians are infected and he sidestepped a question regarding how well social distancing and the statewide stay-at-home order is working.
“I don’t live on the basis of economic forecasts any more than healthcare forecasts. I live on the basis of our capacity to bend curves and change expectations by changing behavior,” Newsom said. “The power and potency as individuals to radically change these projections resides in each and every one of us, in each and every decision we make, each and every single day.
Such modeling and predictions rely heavily on testing for the virus, which has been limited in California and elsewhere in the country. “The biggest backlog is swabs,” Newsom said.
“We’re in the middle of this,” he said.
State officials said they expect they will need 50,000 hospital beds by the middle of May to meet the projected surge in COVID-19 patients, including 30,000 within the hospital system, which represents a 40 percent surge. The additional 20,000 include additional field medical facilities like at the Santa Clara County Convention Center and the Navy hospital ship Mercy, docked at the Port of Los Angeles.
Talking to Zuckerberg, Newsom added, “We feel we have multiple weeks…where we can meet capacity.”
