Category Archives: Vallejo CA

Cal Maritime Academy, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Re-opening, Solano County CA, Vallejo CA

Risky opening: Cal Maritime Academy in Vallejo to begin face-to-face classes on May 10

[Editor: This is way too soon, even with various restrictions and accommodations.  Solano County is still at risk, not to mention Vallejo’s current cluster outbreaks and the active spread of the virus in some of the many locations from which students are returning to Vallejo.  I hate to think that Cal Maritime students, faculty and staff might be guinea pigs in California’s staged re-opening.  Is it too late for Gov. Newsom to reverse this decision?  – R.S.]

Coronavirus: Cal Maritime Academy approved to resume in-person classes beginning in May

ABC7 News, By Liz Kreutz, April 27, 2020

VALLEJO, Calif. (KGO) — As California weighs extending its shelter-in-place order, there are signs some restrictions are beginning to ease.

California State University Maritime Academy in Vallejo says it has received approval from the state to begin face-to-face classes in their spring semester.

“I am pleased to report that as a result of the hard work and good planning of our COVID-19 task force and the academic leadership team, Cal Maritime received approval from Governor Newsom’s office for a limited reopening of our campus to resume face-to-face instruction for the completion of our spring 2020 semester as planned,” Cal Maritime president Thomas Cropper said in a letter to students on Friday.

Cropper said the decision was run through the Chancellor’s Office and various internal entities of the Governor’s Office, including the State Department of Public Health, who provided additional guidance on reopening.

Sarah Sanders’ son Noah is a freshman at Cal Maritime and currently taking virtual classes as he shelters in place with his family at their home in Marin County. Sanders said she was shocked and concerned when she heard classes would be resuming so soon.

“It’s weird, all my friends who have college age students have their kids for the summer and can keep them home, and that’s not our case, which is good and bad,” Sanders said. “I guess they’re kind of a trial case. We’ll see how it goes.”

Bob Art, the Vice President for University Advancement at Cal Maritime, told ABC7 that the school is taking extreme safety precautions, and that when students return to campus it won’t look like it did before. An email from the president to students tells students to “please be prepared for a different campus experience.”

According to Art, cadets who plan to return to campus will be surveyed with a health questionnaire while at home and then given a health screening upon their arrival on campus.

Art said that each cadet will be housed individually in a residence hall room without roommates, and that meals will be grab-and-go or delivered straight to a students door. Everyone will also be health screened daily, including a temperature check, and need to wear a face covering when they are outside their room or office.

“Social distancing will continue in every aspect of campus life- so it will be quite different,” Cropper said in the email.

In that email, Cropper said the initial plan was for students to return to campus on May 10. Face-to-face instructions would tentatively begin on May 13. And a planned ocean voyage would also continue and tentatively begin on June 10.

Art says that since Solano County, where the academy is located, has just updated the shelter in place order to May 17, the new tentative start date for classes is May 20- but that the date could still change.

Cal Maritime is a small, isolated school with just under 1,000 students. Many classes are hands on and cannot be taught virtually. For these reasons, Art believes they are in a unique position to try a partial reopening. He said roughly 500 students are expected to return to classes this Spring.

Although Sanders had concerns, she realizes the school might be a good blueprint for others.

“I can tell you, if it doesn’t work we’ll really know it will be hard for these bigger schools,” she said. “If it does work, I’ll be excited.”

Cal Maritime is part of the Cal State University system. Still, an official for the chancellor’s office told ABC7 News that the reopening of Cal Maritime is unique and separate from the other universities, and that at this point it’s “too early” to say when the other schools will reopen.

Jesse Melgar, a spokesperson for Governor Newsom, released the following statement regarding the partial reopening of Cal Maritime:

“The CSU Maritime Academy trains merchant marines and the maritime workforce is required for shipping and logistics. This specialized maritime workforce is essential to the California economy, as 90% of U.S. trade moves by sea. Nearly $500 billion of trade moves through the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complex alone – the largest on the U.S. Pacific coast – supporting roughly 200,000 jobs. The Administration has provided conditions that must be met for the Academy to resume limited in-person instruction for 513 merchant marine officer cadets after May 10, including strict, unique health and safety guidelines.”

“This includes screening each cadet and instructor every morning, maintaining physical distancing, offering grab-and-go meals, using PPE and providing hand sanitizing stations. This is the only academy of its kind in the state and does not serve as a precedent for other colleges or universities in California.”

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

At least 18 infected at nursing facility in Vallejo

Health care workers are potentially in danger as well

Vallejo Times-Herald, By John Glidden, April 29, 2020
A healthcare worker takes a moment to get some fresh air at the Windsor Vallejo Care Center where at least 18residents have tested positive for COVID-19. CHRIS RILEY — TIMES-HERALD

Eighteen residents at the Windsor Vallejo Nursing and Rehabilitation Center have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the California Department of Health.

The skilled nursing facility also reported that health care workers at the facility have been infected as well.

Vallejo spokeswoman Christina Lee said on Tuesday that the Solano County Public Health Department and the county’s epidemiology team are overseeing operations at the facility after being notified of the infections last Friday.

“At that time, the confirmed number of cases was 12 residents with positive tests and four staff members with positive tests,” Lee wrote. “It’s not known how the virus reached this facility.”

That number increased to 18 residents infected on Monday in what officials are calling a cluster outbreak.

Solano County Public Health Administrator Jayleen Richards said Tuesday that the county is taking the cluster outbreak very seriously.

“We’ve been testing the staff and residents there,” she said. “We will be checking in with the facility each day.”

Richards said this is the county’s first cluster outbreak of COVID- 19.

Josh Sable, general counsel for Windsor Healthcare, told the Times-Herald Tuesday that there have been no deaths associated with the cluster outbreak at the care facility.

Sable didn’t respond to requests from this newspaper to provide the number of total infected residents and health care workers at the Vallejo facility.

“Windsor Vallejo Care Center has experienced a slight increase in the number of residents diagnosed with COVID-19, but a decrease in the number of infected employees,” he wrote in a prepared statement to this newspaper. “Rest assured, since the onset of this pandemic, Windsor’s clinical team has been collaborating closely with local, state and federal authorities, as well as the facility’s medical director. Nothing is more important to us than providing a safe environment for our residents and team members.”

Lee said the facility has created an isolation wing for residents who have been confirmed positive.

“They are placed in a specific wing of the facility to receive care from nurses/staff that do not provide care to patients in the other wings of the facility to help slow the spread,” she explained.

Sable said employees are screened at the start of each shift for symptoms of COVID-19, “including daily temperature checks and completion of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-compliant screening questionnaire. Employees who show signs of illness are asked to leave immediately and isolate at home.”

He also stated that visits to the facility have been restricted, while staff have increased sanitation “of frequently-touched surfaces.”

“We have ample supplies of personal protective equipment,” Sable said.

According to the state, eight other Solano County care facilities have reported no COVID-19 infections of residents or staff members.

Contact reporter John Glidden at 707-553-6832.
Coronavirus, Covid 19, Long-term care facilities, Nursing homes, Solano County CA, Vallejo CA

Vallejo Nursing Home infected with COVID-19, only skilled nursing facility in Solano County as of April 24

By Roger Straw, April 28, 2020

The national crisis in our nursing homes is real and present here in Solano County.

Windsor Vallejo Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Vallejo CA

On April 20, we reported that the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) released a “snapshot” listing of all known skilled nursing facilities reporting COVID-19 among staff or residents.  The list did not include any facilities in Solano County at that time.

As of April 24, the State updated the report, and shows one nursing home in Solano County that was/is dealing with the infection.

Of nine Solano skilled nursing facilities listed, only the Windsor Vallejo Nursing and Rehabilitation Center showed evidence of the coronavirus.  As of April 24, 11 residents and less than 11 staff tested positive.

Windsor Vallejo’s website does an excellent job of sharing extensive information about coronavirus, but does not disclose numbers of positive or active cases.  It leaves unanswered whether any of Solano County’s reported deaths took anyone at their facility.

The State’s “24-hour snapshot” on April 24 showed California’s confirmed active cases in 662 skilled health care workers and ​1,899 nursing care residents.  The cumulative total of cases in the State as of April 24 were 2,329 nursing home health care workers and  3,441 nursing home residents.  Cumulative deaths in the State as of April 24 include less than 11 skilled health care workers and 545 nursing home residents.

Coronavirus, Covid 19, Mare Island CA, Vallejo CA

COVID-19 – Lessons from the past: the 1918 flu epidemic hit Vallejo in 3 waves

Brendan Riley’s Solano Chronicles: When Vallejo and Mare Island were hit hard by Spanish Flu

Members of the William Topley family, photographed in front of their York Street home in Vallejo, wore masks to avoid getting the Spanish Flu, a deadly pandemic that killed millions of people around the world a century ago. (Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum photo)
Vallejo Times-Herald, by Brendan Riley, April 26, 2020

A century before the coronavirus disease dominated the global consciousness, another deadly virus rampaged across the world. The Spanish Flu of 1918, one of the worst pandemics in history, eventually killed up to 50 million people worldwide. That included an estimated 675,000 Americans.

The influenza, which likely did not originate in Spain despite its name, hit Vallejo and Mare Island in waves, starting in late September 1918 when the first case was reported on the shipyard. Capt. Thomas Snyder, MC, USNR (Ret.), who has published a well-researched analysis of the crisis, says Mare Island was alerted in advance and was ready when a Navy corpsman, returning from leave in Oklahoma, came down with the flu on Sept. 25.

But there was inadequate planning in Vallejo, badly overcrowded due to a large wartime increase in shipyard workers – up to 10,000 new shipyard workers — and Snyder says that made spread of contagion inevitable. The first two civilian cases occurred on Sept. 27.

“Not only had little or no advance planning occurred, but the solitary local hospital, a very small facility, was under quarantine because of a smallpox outbreak there, and doctors were involved in a smallpox vaccination program,” Snyder said.

The Navy’s Mare Island efforts included a tent city that served as an annex to the Naval Hospital, a ban on large gatherings, and no liberty for sailors in Vallejo. The Vallejo City Council voted unanimously on Oct. 8 to shut down theaters, dance halls, libraries, schools, churches and other sites used for “public assembly.”  Face masks were mandated, and another emergency hospital was opened. That was followed by an Oct. 18 order from the California Board of Health to shut down all theaters in the state.

“There is no cause for alarm,” the Vallejo Evening Times stated in an Oct. 9 editorial. “As far as can be learned, no Spanish influenza is prevalent here and the steps taken have been taken merely as a preventative.” But news accounts the next day described a dozen new flu cases.

By the end of the month, more than 1,500 military personnel and nearly 300 shipyard civilians had received care on Mare Island, and the crisis on the shipyard appeared to be over. But problems were getting worse in Vallejo, with several hundred cases of influenza being reported. Navy doctors working in town reported finding sick shipyard workers in rooming houses, where uninfected workers would return at night to share poorly ventilated quarters with them. Some workers and their families were housed in hastily constructed shacks, while others lived in tents set up in backyards of established homes.

To help deal with the crisis, a second emergency hospital was set up in town, in a St. Vincent’s school building. The hospital opened in early November and was packed with patients in a few days. The Vallejo emergency hospitals finally closed in late November as numbers of patients declined. By the end of the year, local newspapers reported that 175 people had died on Mare Island and Vallejo. The shipyard victims included Marian Turner, a nurse in charge of one of the Navy’s influenza wards. In Vallejo, victims included Adolph Widenmann, member of a prominent family whose brother Henry had died in a reported hunting accident only 19 days earlier.

In January 1919 another influenza wave hit. Theaters, schools, libraries, lodges and pool halls closed, and the St. Vincent’s emergency hospital reopened, staffed by nuns and Navy medical personnel. Face masks were again required, but some people — labeled “dangerous slackers” by the Red Cross — refused to wear them. The Vallejo Evening Chronicle reported on Jan. 15 that a local judge’s desk was “piled high with $5 fines” as he politely listened to the stories of violators “and then just as politely ordered: $5 please, next case!”

The 25 flu victims who died during January in Vallejo and on Mare Island included B.F. Griffin, president of the First National Bank of Vallejo – whose daughter-in-law, Mrs. Roscoe Griffin, had died from the virus a few months earlier. Finally, by the end of the month no new influenza cases were being reported. The emergency hospital closed again and the emergency restrictions were canceled.

A third wave of influenza cases hit in early 1920, with 10 flu-related deaths reported on Mare Island and two deaths reported in Vallejo. The victims included a Navy doctor, Lt. Edward McColl. A ban on indoor public meetings, cancellation of a boxing match and other restrictions were imposed, but by mid-February they were lifted. The most devastating phase of the pandemic  was over.

— Vallejo and other Solano County communities are treasure troves of early-day California history. The “Solano Chronicles” columns, running every other Sunday in the Times-Herald and on my Facebook page, highlight various aspects of that history. Source references are available upon request. If you have local stories or photos to share, email me at genoans@hotmail.com. You also can send any material care of the Times-Herald, 420 Virginia St.; or the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum, 734 Marin St., Vallejo.