Virus death at California senior home sparks isolation
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Seniors at a Northern California assisted living facility have been placed in a two-week isolation after a resident in her 90s died of the new coronavirus, officials said Wednesday.
Carlton Senior Living confirmed in a statement that the resident of its Elk Grove facility died at a hospital Tuesday. It said 140 residents would be isolated in their apartments.
Isolation is a less restrictive order that separates people with a contagious disease from people who are not sick, while a quarantine restricts the movements of people who've come into contact with a contagious infection to see if they become sick, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The death came in the wake of 19 deaths at a nursing home in Washington state, where Gov. Jay Inslee has limited visitors at such facilities. State officials are now working with 10 nursing facilities where residents or workers have tested positive.
In Los Angeles County, officials announced its first fatality. Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the victim was a woman over 60 who had underlying health conditions and died in a hospital. She was a non-resident visiting friends in the county after recent travel with a long layover in South Korea.
A total of four people have died in California and nearly 160 have tested positive so far, a tally that does not include at least 21 people who tested positive while aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship. Three TSA employees at Mineta San Jose Airport also tested positive and any employees who had contact with them in the past 14 days were quarantined, the agency said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom expects the number of cases to significantly rise as more test kits become available.
In Northern California, Carlton Senior Living said it “immediately took action to elevate precautionary measures in efforts to prevent the spread to our communities." The company runs 13 assisted living facilities in Northern California.
Sacramento County health officials said they were investigating exposure to others at the Elk Grove facility, and no visitors would be allowed at that home until there are no contagious residents.
In a move aimed at Golden State Warriors games, San Francisco Mayor London Breed followed Santa Clara County in banning all gatherings of 1,000 or more people. The mayor last week called off non-essential gatherings of 50 or more people at city-owned properties, such as City Hall, the convention center and performing arts centers, but Warriors games continued.
“They made a decision to continue anyway because it was not a requirement. Now it’s a requirement," Breed said. The Warriors said their next two games would be played without fans.
Newsom has urged the state's nearly 40 million residents to avoid sporting events, concerts and large gatherings, and he adamantly warned the elderly to stay away from cruise ships.
The warning came as California continued the painstaking process of disembarking more than 2,000 passengers from the cruise ship struck by the virus and moving them to military bases around the U.S. for a two-week quarantine. The Grand Princess remained docked in the Port of Oakland.
Newsom said legal advisers were reviewing the possibility of restricting cruise travel off the California coast.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover from the new virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover. More than 80,000 people in China have been diagnosed with the coronavirus. More than 61,000 have recovered.
___
This story has been corrected to say that residents of the home were placed in isolation, not quarantine.
___
Associated Press writers Don Thompson in Sacramento, Daisy Nguyen in San Francisco and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed to this story.