All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent
Coronavirus, Covid 19, Nursing homes, Solano County CA, Vallejo CA

Vallejo nursing home with 99 COVID-19 cases was cited for improper practice in 2019

KTVU Fox2 News, By Rob Roth, May 4, 2020

VALLEJO, Calif. – At the Windsor Vallejo Care Center, 76 patients and 23 health workers have now tested positive for COVID-19.

Of those 99 cases, one of those patients is 64-year-old Joseph Quirarte of Pacifica.

He’s had both legs amputated because of diabetes. Now he has tested positive for the cornavirus.

His two children, including a son, an army staff sergeant stationed in Germany, are worried and frustrated.

“It’s a helpless feeling. I want to help, but I am on a separate continent,” said Sgt, Joe Quirarte Jr. from his base in Germany.

Daughter Maria Quirarte lives closer to the facility, but like all family members of nursing home patients, is not allowed to visit.

“We’re worried the COVID is in his system and we don’t know how his body is going to react. We are trying to be cautious and make sure he gets his meds on time,” she said.

The virus has hit the facility like an avalanche. On Friday there were 34 cases reported.  Now it has almost tripled.

Solano County Public Health said it is working closely with the facility to manage the outbreak.

Quirarte’s family said his father had two roommates who also tested positive and were moved to another room, for which they are grateful.

“He’s had two amputated legs and a toilet that wasn’t working. He has since been moved from that room,” said Maria.

“You see the news stories about other facilities and just hope it won’t happen to your parent’s facility,” said Joe Jr.

State public health records show Windsor Vallejo was cited for improper infection control practices in March 2019.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave the facility a rating of two stars out of five, base on health inspections and overall quality.

“Crucially, regulators have often given infection control pretty short shrift in terms of prioritizing inspections. And we are paying for it now,” says Michael Dark of the non-profit California. Advocates for Nursing Home Reform

To the Quirartes, the health care staff seems overwhelmed.

“We want to make sure they get the help they need to help our father, and others,” said Maria.

Management of Windsor Vallejo did not respond to our messages.

Coronavirus, Covid 19, Nursing homes, Solano County CA

COVID-19 in Solano County – 53 new cases, one new death as of May 4

Monday, May 4th: 53 new cases, 1 new death, total now 320 cases, 6 deaths

Solano County Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Updates and Resources.  Check out basic information in this screenshot. IMPORTANT: The County’s interactive page has more.  On the County website, you can click on “Number of cases” and then hover over the charts for detailed information.

Previous report, Friday, May 1

(Note that 1 new case was added on Friday 5/1 AFTER the 4pm report was posted, raising Friday’s total to 267.)

Summary

Solano County reported 1 new case late on Friday and 53 NEW POSITIVE CASES over the weekend and Monday – total is now 320.  1 new death, total now at 6.

OVER THE WEEKEND:

  • 50 new cases were reported on Saturday 5/2
  • 3 new cases were reported on Sunday 5/3
  • No new cases were reported today, Monday 5/4
  • (Note also that 1 new case was added on Friday 5/1 AFTER the 4pm report was posted, raising Friday’s total to 267.)

BY AGE GROUP

  • No new cases of young persons under 19 years of age, total of 6 cases, less than 2% of the 320 confirmed cases.
  • 23 of today’s new cases were persons 19-64 years of age, total of 231 cases, 72%, of the total (down from 78% on Friday).   No new deaths, total of 2.  Note that only 31 of the 231 cases in this age group (13.4%) were hospitalized at one time.  (It is unclear whether the 2 deaths were ever hospitalized.)
  • 31 of today’s new cases were persons 65 or older, total of 83 cases, 26% of the total (up from 20% on Friday).
    Today’s 1 new death was a person in this age group, total now of 4.  Note that 22 of the 83 cases in this age group (only 26.5%, down from 40%, on Friday) were hospitalized at one time.  The percentage drop is surely due to the major increase of cases in the cluster outbreak at Windsor Vallejo Nursing Home, where most infected residents were evidently moved to a separate wing rather than to a hospital.  (It is unclear whether the 4 deaths in this age group were ever hospitalized, nor whether any came from Windsor Vallejo.)

HOSPITALIZATIONS: 54 of Solano’s 320 cases resulted in hospitalizations, an increase of only 3 over the weekend.  Relatively good news – a small increase despite the big number of new cases.

ACTIVE CASES:  65 of the 320 are active cases, an increase of 15 over Friday’s total of 40.  The county does not report WHERE the active cases are.  Below you will see that only 14 are currently hospitalized, which leaves 51 of these 65 active cases out in our communities somewhere, and hopefully quarantined.

The County’s “Hospital Impact” graph shows 14 of the 54 hospitalized cases are CURRENTLY hospitalized, 3 more than on Friday.  The County’s count of ICU beds available and ventilator supply remains at “GOOD” at 31-100%. (No information is given on our supply of test kits, PPE and staff.)

CITY DATA

  • Vallejo added 50 of today’s 53 (54) new cases, total of 175.
  • Fairfield added 1 new case, total now at 61.
  • Vacaville added 1 new case, total now at 36.
  • Suisun City remains at 16.
  • Benicia added 2 new cases, total now at 16.
  • [sta_anchor id=”sph_testing” /]Dixon, Rio Vista and “Unincorporated” are still not assigned numerical data: today all remain at <10 (less than 10).  Note that the numbers for other cities add up to 304, leaving 16 cases located somewhere among the locations in this “<10” category (same number as last reported).  Residents and city officials have pressured County officials for city case counts.  Today’s data is welcome, but still incomplete.

TESTING

The County reports that 5,160 residents have been tested as of today.  This is an increase of 1,061 residents over the 3 days since Friday’s total of 4,099.  That is only an average of just over 350 per day, about the same as on last Friday, but much better than Thursday when we added only 37 and Wednesday only 106.  We are still not up to the earlier times when the County reported daily increases of 505 and 438 new tests.  Testing numbers need to be much higher!  We have a long way to go: only 1% of Solano County’s 447,643 residents (2019) have been tested.

Solano’s upward curve in cumulative cases – as of May 4

The chart above shows Saturday’s big jump in the infection’s trajectory in Solano County.  We may be seeing a flattening of the overall curve, but our nursing homes bear watching!  (And I haven’t heard anything about Solano County jails….)

Still incredibly important – everyone stay home and be safe!

Coronavirus, Covid 19, Nursing homes, Solano County CA, Vallejo CA

Windsor Vallejo Nursing Home – massive increase in COVID-19 cases

Almost 100 infected with COVID-19 at Windsor care facility in Vallejo

An ambulance pulls in front of the Windsor Vallejo Nursing & Rehabilitation Center where 76 residents and 23 health care workers have tested positive for the Novel Coronavirus. (Chris Riley—Times-Herald)
Vallejo Times-Herald, By John Glidden, May 4, 2020

Nearly 100 individuals have been infected at the Windsor Vallejo Nursing & Rehabilitation Center with COVID-19, Solano County Public Health Administrator Jayleen Richards confirmed to the Times-Herald on Monday.

Richards said 76 residents and 23 health care workers have tested positive for the Novel Coronavirus.

Richards said the Solano County Public Health Department is “working closely” with the facility to manage the cluster outbreak. She said infected patients have been moved to another part of the facility to recover, while infected workers are recovering at home.

County officials began testing residents and health care workers last week after the facility reported nearly a dozen residents had been infected as of April 24. That initial number ballooned to 34 last week, and then doubled again with 76 residents infected with COVID-19 as of Monday.

It wasn’t immediately known if there have been any deaths at the facility due to COVID-19.

Attempts to reach facility officials proved unsuccessful on Monday, as no one answered the facility’s main phone line when the Times-Herald called for a comment. In addition, Josh Sable, general counsel for Windsor Healthcare, couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

“I’m extremely concerned about the well being of the patients and staff members,” Vallejo Mayor Bob Sampayan said by phone when told about the 99 infected.

Sampayan said he’d like to see the non-infected residents be moved to another care facility while the infected patients recover inside Windsor.

The mayor said it might be necessary at some point for the state to step in to help stop the spread of Coronavirus in the facility.

Richards previously told this newspaper that the testing data from Windsor “has been and will be included on the COVID-19 Dashboard produced daily by Solano Public Health.”

The city of Vallejo has the most coronavirus cases in Solano County with 125 as of last Friday.

Eight other Solano County care facilities have reported no COVID-19 infections of residents or staff members, as of May 1, according to the state.

Check back as this article will be updated.
Assault weapons, Federal Regulation (Canada), Gun control, Gun violence, Mass shootings

Canada Orders Immediate Ban on Assault Weapons in Wake of Deadly Mass Shooting

PM Justin Trudeau said the government had been in the process of introducing the ban when its agenda was overturned by the pandemic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada attending a news conference in Ottawa on Friday. Credit…Blair Gable/Reuters
New York Times, by Ian Austen, May 1, 2020

OTTAWA — Nearly two weeks after the deadliest mass shooting in Canada’s history, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday introduced an immediate ban on what he described as “military-style assault weapons.”

“These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time,” Mr. Trudeau said. “There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada.”

The ban means that Canadians will no longer be able to own rifles like the AR-15, the military-style weapon used in several mass shootings in the United States including those in Newtown, Conn.; Orlando, Fla.; and Parkland, Fla.

By introducing the ban, Mr. Trudeau partly fulfills a gun control promise he made during last year’s federal elections. He said the government had been in the process of introducing an assault weapons ban when its agenda was overturned by the coronavirus pandemic.

In making the announcement, Mr. Trudeau noted several gun killings and repeatedly cited the shooting rampage in rural Nova Scotia that left 23 people dead, including the gunman.

The gunman’s arsenal included two models banned on Friday, said Bill Blair, the country’s public safety minister.

The killer did not have a firearms license and many of his guns and rifles had been smuggled into Canada from the United States, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, highlighting one difficulty Canada may face in enforcing the new measure. The U.S. federal government has not barred assault weapons since a previous ban expired in 2004.

The swift response by Mr. Trudeau to the killings in Nova Scotia stands in contrast to that of officials in the United States, where repeated efforts to renew the now-lapsed assault weapons ban have failed.

A makeshift memorial for Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Heidi Stevenson, who was killed in the shooting in Nova Scotia. Credit…Tim Krochak/Reuters

The Canadian government has drawn up a list of about 1,500 gun models covered by the new ban. It estimates that about 100,000 such semiautomatic rifles are now legally owned by Canadians.

Mr. Trudeau said the government will introduce legislation to buy back the rifles, another part of his campaign promise, at a future date. Until then, owners have been given two years to keep their rifles although they can no longer use them, trade them or sell them except to buyers outside Canada with a permit. Gun shops can return any of the weapons they now have in stock to manufacturers.

While handguns and automatic weapons are tightly restricted in Canada, most rifles and shotguns have been more loosely regulated. The previous Conservative government shut down a registry for such weapons that had been set up after a man gunned down 14 young women and injured 13 others in 1989 at the École Polytechnique engineering school in Montreal.

That database was beset by technical problems and was deeply unpopular in rural areas. Mr. Trudeau has resisted calls from gun control groups to revive it.

Mr. Trudeau said on Friday that his planned legislation will also include a measure that will allow cities to ban handguns within their boundaries, another of his campaign pledges.

Andrew Scheer, the leader of the Conservative Party, repeated his longstanding opposition to any ban and buyback of military-style weapons, noting that many mass killers, including Gabriel Wortman in Nova Scotia, and other criminals use illegal firearms brought in from the United States.

“It’s easy but lazy government to ask the people who follow all the rules to follow more rules,” Mr. Scheer told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He also criticized Mr. Trudeau for introducing the measure through a cabinet order while Parliament is not meeting in normal sessions because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Wendy Cukier, the president of the Coalition for Gun Control, said that most mass shootings in Canada have involved legally owned rifles and said there’s evidence that the availability of military-style weapons may make such killings more likely.

“Most mass shooters are law abiding until they are not,” she said.

What motivated the 13.5-hour killing spree in Nova Scotia by Mr. Wortman, a denture fitter, remains unknown. It started in the tiny summer community of Portapique when Mr. Wortman assaulted his partner and tied her up. She escaped and he began shooting people inside and outside of their homes while he also set fire to several buildings, including some of his own properties.

After the police arrived shortly before midnight on April 18, they found two replica Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruisers registered to Mr. Wortman on fire and located a third at his full-time residence in Halifax. That led the police to believe, they said, that he may have committed suicide and was in one of the burning buildings.

But after hiding in the woods all night, Mr. Wortman’s partner told police that he was traveling in a fourth replica police car that did not have license plates. Investigators subsequently discovered that he had eluded them by driving through a farm field and then hiding in another town where he resumed his killing spree in the morning.

He was eventually shot and killed after pulling into a gas station while driving a car belonging to one of the victims.

Ms. Cukier acknowledged that the government will have to continually update its list to prevent manufacturers from circumventing the ban by modifying current models and reintroducing them as new weapons. Her group, she said, will recommend that future legislation focus more on a system in which gunmakers must get approval to sell specific weapons rather than on steps to ban the weapons.

And while her group generally takes stances that oppose those of the Conservatives, she agreed that more must be done about smuggled weapons.

“There are a lot of things that have to happen,” she said. “Most Canadians don’t know the extent to which our laws have been eroded.”

Alan Drummond, who has long pushed for more gun controls through the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, praised Mr. Trudeau and members of his cabinet for their unequivocal statements about the need to ban assault weapons.

“What struck me was the absolute clarity and conviction,” he said.