workers ordered to self-quarantine because of potential exposure to an infected patient is rising at an exponential pace.
In Vacaville, California, alone, one case — the first documented instance of community transmission in the U.S. — left more than 200 hospital workers under quarantine and unable to work for weeks.
“It’s just not sustainable to think that every time a health care worker is exposed they have to be quarantined for 14 days. We’d run out of health care workers,” Nuzzo said. Anyone showing signs of infection should stay home, she added, but providers who may have been exposed but are not symptomatic should not necessarily be excluded from work.
Now that the disease has started to spread through the community, any patient with respiratory symptoms potentially could be infected, though health officials note the likelihood remains low. As providers start routinely wearing protective gear and employing strict safety protocols, accidental exposure should decline.
Yet providers don’t often think in those terms. “In many ways we’re spoiled because we’ve gone from a society 50 or 100 years ago where the major killers were infectious disease,” said Dr. Michael Wilkes, a professor at UC Davis School of Medicine. “Now we’ve become complacent because the major killers are heart disease and diabetes.”
Anyone arriving at a Sutter emergency room with signs of a respiratory infection is given a mask and sequestered. “A runny nose and a cough doesn’t tell you much. It could be a cold, it could be a flu, and in this weather it could be allergies,” said Dr. Bill Isenberg, Sutter’s chief quality and safety officer. A doctor or nurse in protective equipment — including N95 mask, gown and goggles — is deployed to assess the patient’s symptoms.
Not all hospitals are adapting so quickly. National Nurses United, a union representing more than 150,000 nurses, recently held a news conference to call on hospitals to better protect their workers. Of the 6,500 nurses who participated in a survey the union circulated, fewer than half said they had gotten instruction in how to recognize and respond to possible cases of COVID-19.
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