There are no local cases of COVID-19, the disease linked to a novel coronavirus first discovered in China late last year, but Santa Barbara public health officials are collaborating on plans and screening procedures.
“Basically what we are doing is we are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best, and at the moment, all over the country and especially in Santa Barbara County, there is really no risk for the general population to catch this virus,” Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg told Noozhawk on Friday.
“Now obviously because this can evolve into an outbreak locally, we’ve been preparing for over a month with emergency preparedness teams and the local hospitals. They all have their plans in place and are prepared — hopefully it’s never going to happen — for an epidemic in the area,” he said.
It seems impossible to escape news of the virus’ spread, which has prompted mass quarantines, travel bans, and stock market declines worldwide.
Coronaviruses typically cause mild or moderate respiratory illness in humans, but this novel coronavirus, which was first discovered in late 2019, can cause severe respiratory problems. Tens of thousands of cases have been confirmed worldwide, and more than 2,800 people have died.
Cases are being confirmed in new countries every day.
“It has the potential to kill people, and it has the potential to be a bad cold,” Ansorg said.
COVID-19 spreads by droplets like the flu, and has similar symptoms of fever, cough and shortness of breath.
“It is a droplet infection, so it does not stay in the air for a long time at all. In order to catch the virus, you basically have to have somebody cough on you or be in close vicinity,” Ansorg said.
He said it seems to affect more people who are elderly or have chronic illness, compared to the influenza virus, which also affects children and otherwise healthy people.
Nine confirmed cases had been reported in California as of Friday, and the officials identified the first possible case of community transmission – a Solano County resident with COVID-19 who had not been exposed to the virus through travel or had close contact with a known infected individual.
The other California patients include seven travel-related cases and one close-contact case, of a San Benito County resident who had “close, prolonged interaction with a family member who had returned from Wuhan, China, and had tested positive for COVID-19,” the county Public Health Department said.
“I try to reassure people, right now walking through Santa Barbara, you having a chance of catching this virus is extremely low,” Ansorg said. “It’s just like nonexistent basically.”
“Nobody has died from this virus in the United States, and the fatality rate seems to be the highest in Wuhan city, where it erupted in 2019, and outside that areas it seems much lower,” Ansorg said.
There’s a lot public health officials don’t know about the virus, which probably leads to some of the fear circulating, he noted.
People can protect themselves from this and other viruses by staying away from sick people, staying home from work or school if they are sick, using disinfectant to clean surfaces, and washing their hands frequently with soap and water.
“You should avoid crowded spaces and wash your hands very, very frequently. I cannot stress this enough, and it sounds so trivial, but it really is the best defense,” he said.
The Public Health Department is leading the local response, and the county Office of Emergency Management is coordinating to stay aware of what’s going on, OEM Director Kelly Hubbard said.
“We are refreshing ourselves on our planning related to health emergencies,” she said.
The state put out guidelines for schools and school districts earlier this month, and the Santa Barbara County Education Office has been communicating with OEM, Public Health and district superintendents, spokeswoman Valerie Cantella said.
Individual districts have decision-making authority for emergency plans and contingencies, including school closures, she said, but any major decisions would include input from OEM and Public Health due to community-wide impacts.
Local coronavirus screening and testing
All testing in the United States was done through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention until Thursday, when they sent 200 testing kits to California, according to Ansorg.
“Testing is still really difficult, unfortunately,” he said. “So far, only the CDC has been running the tests and they are in Atlanta, and they’re running them for the whole country.”
“As of yesterday afternoon, the FDA approved tests to also be done in the (California Department of Public Health) state lab in Richmond, but they only get 200 kits, so obviously that’s not enough to test a lot of sick people. But it’s a start, and we’re hoping this will really branch out to more public health labs in the near future, in the next couple weeks or so,” he said.
“I don’t think Santa Barbara is first in line to get test kits — it’s probably more like the metro areas, Los Angeles and San Francisco.”
Ansorg also acknowledged the problems with the United States’ initial test kits, which weren’t reliable, as described in more detail by this ProPublica investigation.
Public health officials want to make sure they aren’t using unreliable tests that may cause false positives or false negatives, he said.
“There are no confirmed or suspected cases for this virus in our county at the moment, which is fortunate, and you know, the recommendations for returning travelers and so forth is changing really rapidly, it’s really a moving target,” Ansorg said.
The CDC guidelines required screening all travelers coming from mainland China at airports, and new guidelines may require testing people returning from additional countries: Japan, South Korea, Iran and Italy, he said.
No quarantines have been imposed in Santa Barbara County, and there are far fewer returning travelers here than larger metro areas of California and the rest of the country, he noted.
Some returning travelers are required to “self-monitor” – stay home from school and work for two weeks and avoid people – while public health nurses call to check on temperature and overall health, Ansorg said.
None of those people has gotten sick, but if they did, the county would consider having them tested for COVID-19, he added.
While the symptoms are similar to the flu, emergency rooms and other doctors can run a respiratory panel to test for 20 viruses that cause similar symptoms, he noted.
A flow chart tells providers to identify if a person with respiratory illness/fever symptoms has traveled to China or had close contact with someone known to have COVID-19 within the previous 14 days.
How to Protect Yourself and Others From Viruses, Including Coronavirus and Flu
Public Health officials advise washing hands frequently with soap and water (for at least 20 seconds each time), and avoiding touching eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands.
People should also avoid close contact with people who are sick, and stay home themselves if they become sick with respiratory symptoms such as fever and coughing.
So what about masks?
Direct Relief and other nonprofits have sent thousands of masks and other protective equipment to areas affected by coronavirus, and in Santa Barbara County, people are buying out stocks of masks at local hardware stores and pharmacies.
Wearing a surgical mask could help sick people limit the spread of the illness, whether it is COVID-19, the flu or something else, Ansorg said.
Wearing one as a healthy person is not really an insurance policy against catching a virus, especially in a crowded place like a packed bus or full movie theater, he said.
“N-95 masks (like the ones recommended during wildfires) are great for health-care workers,” he said, but they can be difficult to fit correctly and feel hot or uncomfortable after a while.
“So running around with a N-95 outside is probably, in my opinion, not necessary. You have to be very close to a person, like six feet, for at least 15 minutes at a time, who is also coughing and sneezing to get it.”
Health-care workers dealing with highly infectious diseases spread through droplets use masks, eye protection, gloves and gowns, he noted.
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.