Coronavirus Updates: California Shutdown Could Last 12 Weeks; Park Playgrounds Close

Mar. 25–California's shutdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic could very well last into the summer.

Gov. Gavin Newsom in a Tuesday news conference said an April lifting of the stay-at-home and social distancing measures he ordered into place last Thursday “would be sooner than any of the experts (he) talked to would believe is possible.”

Newsom suggested the dramatic social distancing measures could continue for as long as 12 more weeks, which would be mid-June.

Newsom's comments came after President Donald Trump said he would like to see much of the United States back open for business by Easter, on April 12.

All of this comes as the U.S., including California, face ever-increasing urgency to slow the spread of the virus, “flattening” the curve to a level hospital systems can handle.

As of early Wednesday, the coronavirus has infected more than 435,000 people worldwide and there have been nearly 20,000 deaths. The United States has seen about 55,000 COVID-19 infections and about 800 fatalities, with close to 50 dead in California.

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The crisis has already forced astounding measures, with statewide stay-at-home orders requiring residents only leave home for essential reasons. The result has included entire sectors of California's economy being effectively shut down.

UC Davis Med Center staff infected with coronavirus

Employees of UC Davis Medical Center, the research hospital in Sacramento in which the nation's first known case of community-transmitted coronavirus was treated, were told earlier this week that some staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 and “many” more infections are expected.

In an internal email obtained by The Sacramento Bee, David Lubarsky, CEO of UC Davis Health, alerted hospital employees that some of their colleagues had been infected.

“Last week, we had the first of what will be many members of our UC Davis Health family who test positive for COVID-19,” he wrote. “That person, and a few others we've learned about since Friday, have all been very likely community-acquired infections, from family members or others living in close quarters to them.”

One Medical Center employee, a 48-year-old emergency room nurse, told The Bee she received a positive coronavirus test result Monday.

Lubarsky said in his memo the infected staff members “very likely” caught the virus outside the hospital. But the nurse, who asked not to be identified, said she believes she caught it March 15 from a patient brought to the ER from a skilled nursing facility.

Lubarsky did not say how many staff members contracted the coronavirus, but he said the recent tests were cases detected as “backlogged test results” began to come in, and that “literally dozens” of UC Davis Medical Center team members “will have to call in sick.”

In early March, the hospital said 89 employees, who were placed on in-home isolation precautions after coming in contact with a Solano County woman believed to be the first U.S. case of community spread, were “doing well and will be returning to work.” All tested negative for the virus.

What to know as coronavirus testing arrives in Sacramento

Private, drive-up testing for COVID-19 came to Sacramento earlier this week and is now up and running, but not just anyone can go and get a test.

The free program, an initiative called Project Baseline operated by Google's sister company Verily, expanded to Sacramento with a soft launch Tuesday.

Verily began conducting tests at a site at Cal Expo in Sacramento, but testing remains appointment-only. Verily uses a website to screen patients, asking interested people to fill out a questionnaire to see if they qualify for the in-person test.

On Tuesday, signs for the testing “admission station” could be seen posted at the fairgrounds, with one worker holding a sign that said “Please roll up your window.” During a drive-through test, drivers and passengers typically remain seated in the car as a healthcare provider take a sample from up the patient's nose or throat.

The testing service, which will be operated by county agencies, is not intended for people with severe coronavirus symptoms but is an effort to ease the burden on hospitals and government labs by testing adult residents with milder symptoms.

A Bee review of the questionnaire found Verily is still restricting tests because of capacity issues to those who are part of high-priority groups, such as being a healthcare worker, being over the age of 60 or having existing health conditions.

Park playground equipment is now off-limits

No more jungle gyms.

Playground equipment at Sacramento county and city parks are now off-limits to children and their families, officials say. The fear is that playgrounds have frequently touched surfaces and could bring children dangerously close to each other, leading to more COVID-19 infections.

Seven parks in the Sacramento County parks system have had their playgrounds cordoned off with caution tape, county spokesman Ken Casparis told The Bee on Tuesday.

“Many people use these playgrounds and they have so many high-touch areas that we wouldn't be able to keep cleaning them and make them safe,” Casparis said. “So, we we just had to close it down.”

Schools, students and parents adjust to online learning

K-12 parents in the Sacramento area described frustration about the timeframes in which schools are distributing work.

Struggles and delays come amid a huge transition period, as teachers need hours of training on using platforms such as Zoom or Google Clasroom to teach online.

The Elk Grove Unified School District announced on Monday it will finish the remainder of the school year online. The district, the largest in Northern California, made its announcement to close its schools a week before other Sacramento-area school districts after discovering that a parent of a student was ordered into quarantine.

Northern California: Every public school district in Sacramento and Placer counties will close for up to three weeks starting Monday in a coordinated attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus. Some schools in Yolo County will also close. https://t.co/rtpMSYPkOE

— Need A Hobby (@NeedaHobby1) March 14, 2020

Beginning Wednesday, teachers will receive training on how to use Synergy, Zoom, Google Apps for Education, Microsoft and Edgenuity to create a new curriculum, according to the announcement.

High school and middle school students will pick up online instruction April 16, and elementary-aged students will begin April 20, more than a month after schools closed.

Schools in Folsom Cordova Unified and San Juan Unified began distributing Chromebooks to students this week in preparation for online learning, also referred to as “distance” learning.

Within the Sacramento City Unified School District system, C.K. McClatchy High School parent JeVonne Howard said some of her daughter's teachers have been communicating online since schools have closed, but not all of them.

“I reached out to each of my daughter's teachers last week,” Howard told The Bee. “Three of the six responded. Only two gave assignments or a plan.”

First US coronavirus child death reported, then walked back

California health officials on Tuesday announced the state's first death involving a coronavirus patient under the age of 18, which was also believed to be the first COVID-19 child death in the United States.

Authorities said the child was from Lancaster, in northern Los Angeles County. The death was among four new coronavirus fatalities initially announced Tuesday by health officials for a total of 11 in the county.

But then, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued a statement later Tuesday evening saying the juvenile fatality will require further evaluation by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm that the death was the result of COVID-19 and not something else. The county statement called the patient's case “complex” but said patient privacy rules prevent the release of further details to the public.

As of Wednesday morning, the county website still showed 11 COVID-19 deaths.

The minor's exact age was not released by health officials, but Newsom said in Tuesday's news conference that the victim was a teenager.

Latest numbers: COVID-19 totals near half-million worldwide

Italy has approached 70,000 infections and the United States has passed 55,000 as the worldwide count of confirmed cases totaled close to 440,000 early Wednesday, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University. China, where growth exploded in the Hubei province but has since slowed considerably, stands at under 82,000 cases and almost 3,300 deaths.

Johns Hopkins also reports that Switzerland (at over 10,000 confirmed cases), France (23,000), Iran (27,000), Germany (35,000) and Spain (48,000) are also at five-digit infection totals. More than 1,000 people have died in Italy (6,820 dead), Spain (3,434), China (3,285), Iran (2,077) and France (1,100) as of 7:15 a.m. Pacific Time, according to Johns Hopkins.

The exponential growth trend seems all but certain to push that global total beyond 500,000 before the end of the week.

In the United States, just over 800 people have died of the coronavirus, with more than 270 of those deaths in New York state, where 26,000 infections have been reported thus far. Washington state has 125 fatalities among about 2,500 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins.

California had over 2,400 cases and at least 49 confirmed deaths as of Tuesday evening, according to a Bee survey of data released by county health departments.

Reminder: What is COVID-19? How is the coronavirus spread?

Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within six feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby. The CDC says it's possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”

Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Most develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.

Sacramento Bee reporters Rosalio Ahumada, Sophia Bollag, Sawsan Morrar, Jason Pohl, Ryan Sabalow and Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks; and McClatchy reporter Maddie Capron contributed to this report.

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