Three new deaths caused by the new coronavirus were reported in King County, Washington where an outbreak is occurring among patients at a nursing facility. There are now 14 cases in King County, including five deaths — two of which were previously reported. A sixth patient, whose case originated in Snohomish County, also died.
The deaths were in a man in his 70s, a woman in her 70s, and a woman in her 80s. Two of the three were patients at Life Care Center, a nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington. Another new case, a woman in her 80s who has been hospitalized, was also linked to Life Care. That brings the number of cases that are linked to Life Care to nine.
The Life Care cluster of illnesses appears to be the first in the US — and is alarming to health experts because the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, is particularly deadly for older people. Unfortunately, long-term care facilities “provide an ideal environment for acquisition and spread of infection,” according to a study from 2003. The residents are already vulnerable, either because of age or underlying health conditions or both — and they’re in close proximity, making it easier to transmit the illness.
Of the 108 residents and 180 staff at Life Care, 27 residents and 25 staff members have symptoms of the virus, Washington health officials said on Saturday. In addition, 25 firefighters as well as two police officers were exposed to the virus, though they haven’t shown any symptoms yet, The Washington Post reported. In response to the outbreak, family visits as well as those from volunteers and vendors, have been halted,Kaiser Health News reported. King County will buy a motel in order to place COVID-19 patients in isolation.
The virus may have been circulating in Washington for six weeks, according to a genetic analysis. Researchers compared two samples of the virus, one from a person who traveled to Snohomish County from China in January, and one from a recently diagnosed high school student with no obvious cause. The genetic sequences were nearly identical, according to Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Although the work is early, Bedford believes there isn’t another good explanation for the similarity because of an unusual variant on one of the genes.
But most people had no idea the virus was circulating because the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wasn’t actively testing for the novel coronavirus in people with no known exposures to the illness — either from travel to an affected area or close contact with an existing case — until last week. That means detection of the novel coronavirus in the community lagged dangerously behind the virus’s actual circulation.
Under the best of circumstances, testing would lag anyway — because most people don’t show symptoms of COVID-19 for a few days. So positive tests are essentially snapshots of where the virus was several days ago. But by keeping the test criteria narrow, the CDC lost valuable time to prevent outbreaks like the one at Life Care. Now health officials are scrambling to catch up.
On February 26th, the first possible case of community-spread COVID-19 in the country was announced in California. The patient, from Solano County, had already been placed on a ventilator when she arrived at the University of California Davis Medical Center on February 19th, where the team immediately requested testing for the coronavirus, according to the Davis Enterprise. The CDC didn’t test the patient until Feb. 23rd. The CDC claims it has not said no to any requests for testing.
Amid all this confusion, one health expert told ProPublica that efforts to corral the illness are “weeks behind.” To determine how widely the virus is circulating in areas like Washington and California, health officials could test a random sample of hundreds of people and find out how many of them test positive. (This is called “surveillance testing.”) Until widespread testing is the norm, we’ll still be behind the illness — with tragic consequences. At least in the case of Life Care, the delay on tracking and containing the disease seems to have been deadly.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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