SACRAMENTO >> California public health officials are dipping into state and federal stockpiles to equip up to 10,000 farmworkers with masks, gloves, goggles, and other safety gear as the state confirms at least 21 human cases of bird flu as of November.
Officials said they began distributing more than 2 million pieces of personal protective equipment in May, four months before the first human case was confirmed in the state. They said they began ramping up coordination with local health officials in April after bird flu was first detected in cattle. Bird flu was also recently detected in a flock of commercial turkeys in Sacramento County.
California is tracking infectious diseases through wastewater surveillance, as the state tries to limit the spread of bird flu to humans. It’s striving to stockpile to withstand the first wave of a new public health disaster without hemorrhaging the state budget.
“We are far better prepared to respond to a pandemic than we were in 2020,” said Amy Palmer, a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
By the time California ramped up its pandemic response, it had enough personal protective equipment and other disaster supplies to fill 52 football fields. California spent $15.6 billion during the covid crisis years, much of it by the federal government.
The current stockpile includes 101 million face masks. That includes 88 million N95 masks, more than the emergency services agency said was needed last year. The masks are considered crucial to protect against airborne viruses such as covid-19.
The state’s goal, Palmer said, is to have “an initial supply during emergencies to allow us the time to secure resources.”
There is no indication of spread between humans in the recent California bird flu cases, and health officials say public risk remains low. Human transmission of bird flu is among several worst-case scenarios for a new pandemic.
Yet, health officials nationwide have struggled to track bird flu transmission. And California has a history of swinging back and forth on preparedness.
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered an increase in California’s pandemic preparedness in 2006 in response to an earlier threat from bird flu. That included three mobile hospitals that could immediately be deployed during disasters.
Gov. Jerry Brown, ended the program in 2011 as state finances went bust. By the time covid struck, the state released 21 million N95 masks, some so old they were past their expiration date.
Now hospitals are required to maintain their own three-month supply of masks, gowns, and other personal protective equipment under a state law passed in 2020. California’s aerosol transmissible disease standard also uniquely requires hospitals to use negative pressure isolation rooms and the highest level of protective equipment.
“It is difficult to overstate the level of unpreparedness exhibited by hospitals both in and outside of California in dealing with the 2020 outbreak of COVID-19,” according to a legislative analysis.
In addition, Palmer said California has five mobile hospitals acquired from the federal government, though they got little use during the pandemic. She said they have to be maintained, such as making sure pulse oximeters have working batteries.
But, once again, the current deficit has the state trying to strike a balance.
While lawmakers rejected most of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $300 million proposed cut to public health funding, the state slashed funding for its stockpile of personal protective equipment by one-third a year ago after it determined that no additional covid-related purchases were necessary, according to the Department of Finance. It’s cutting nearly $40 million over the next four years from its $175 million disaster stockpile budget.
The state’s preparedness wasn’t good enough for Californians Against Pandemics, which gathered more than 1 million signatures to put a ballot measure before voters in November. The measure would have increased taxes on people with incomes over $5 million and used that money for pandemic prevention and response.
But that effort collapsed after one of its key financial supporters, former cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried, was convicted of defrauding investors. In exchange for initiative backers dropping the measure, state officials agreed to broaden the scope of the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine, created in 2015 to develop new medicines to include technologies for preventing another pandemic.
“Harnessing the power of precision medicine, California is moving to the forefront of pandemic preparedness and prevention,” Newsom said at the time.
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
