An employee working the Christmas shift at the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center has died after falling ill with COVID-19. The worker was one of at least 43 staff members who tested positive for the coronavirus in the past few days, an outbreak possibly linked to staff members wearing an inflatable holiday costume to wake up.
The staff member who briefly appeared in the emergency department on Christmas Day, according to a hospital manager, wore a costume with a holiday theme. KNTV-TV, the San Jose NBC station that first reported the outbreak, reported that the costume was a inflatable Christmas tree.
Inflatable costumes are usually powered by batteries and use a fan to keep the costume inflated. But such a fan can also cause virus particles to move much further into a room.
KNTV-TV reported that the person who died was a woman who worked as a registration clerk in the emergency department.
‘Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this terrible loss. We offer support to our employees during this difficult time, ”reads a statement issued by the hospital late Sunday.
In a statement Saturday, Irene Chavez, senior vice president and area manager of the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center, said officials were investigating whether the costume was contributing to the outbreak.
‘Any exposure, if it were to take place, would have been completely innocent and completely accidental if the individual [wearing the costume] had no COVID symptoms and only tried to arouse the minds of those around them during a very stressful time, ‘Chavez said.
“If it’s anything, it should be a very important reminder that the virus is widespread, and often asymptomatic, and that we should all be vigilant,” Chavez said.
It was not immediately clear whether the person wearing the costume later tested positive for the coronavirus.
Chavez said the hospital will no longer allow air-powered costumes at its facilities and that it is taking steps to strengthen safety measures among staff, including no meetings during breaks, no sharing of food and drink and wearing masks at all times.
The highly contagious coronavirus usually spreads through droplets that are sprayed from a person’s mouth and nose, such as by breathing, talking, coughing and sneezing, and usually lands only six feet or so from a person before it falls to the ground. People can be very infected with the virus, even without showing any signs of illness.
Strong air pressure can help the coronavirus to infect other people. In one such case in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, a pre-symptomatic person who had just returned from Wuhan – the first epicenter of the global pandemic – eats lunch in a restaurant with the family. Scientists concluded that the person infected two other families sitting at the tables about three meters away; they suspect that infected droplets from the index patient have driven the airflow driven by an air conditioning system.
San Jose is located in the heart of Silicon Valley and is the largest city in Santa Clara County, Northern California’s most populous province. Its hospitals are suffering from severe overcrowding in the worst of the pandemic. On New Year’s Day, 97% of the standard capacity of ICU beds in Santa Clara County was occupied.
According to a Times analysis, Santa Clara, home to nearly 2 million people, has the worst number of cases and deaths in any province in the Bay Area in the past week. It recorded more than 74,000 cases of coronavirus and more than 740 COVID-19 deaths.
Last week, provincial officials said hospitals were stretched to the limit, with 50 to 60 patients sitting in emergency rooms every day waiting for a bed.
Often, the only way a patient can be moved into an ICU bed is because a COVID-19 patient has died, Dr. Marco Randazzo, an emergency physician at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose and St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, said. .
Gloria de la Merced, chief operating officer of the hospital, said last week that the ICU beds in the St. Louise Regional Hospital is full. “This level of hospitalizations has never occurred in my career,” she said. “If we exceed the capacity for growth, everyone will be affected. More people in our community will know someone who has died. ‘
Across Santa Clara County, the daily incidence of coronavirus is more than ten times higher than it was on October 30th. “What we are seeing now is not normal,” said Dr. Ahmad Kamal, director of health preparedness for Santa Clara County, said last week. .
“This has been the state of the pandemic for the past few weeks, and it shows no signs of disappointment,” Kamal said.
Kamal pleaded with the public to continue wearing masks, staying socially distant and canceling gatherings.