The signs at a protest outside the Humboldt County Courthouse in early May argued against complying with government orders and expressed hostility towards the head of the Department of Public Health. [Crop of a photo by Mark McKenna]
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The strain of COVID-19 infection that ultimately killed four Alder Bay Assisted Living residents reportedly started with a methamphetamine dealer who rejected the public health council and refused to isolate himself, the public health nurse from the Humboldt County, Erica Dykehouse, to famous author Michael Lewis, who was writing a column for Bloomberg.
Lewis’ column, “Confessions of a California COVID Nurse,” focuses on Dykehouse’s contact tracing investigations, working backwards from a positive COVID-19 test, trying to find everyone the new case. positive you may have exposed the deadly virus. It offers an illuminating view of the work, as well as a level of detail about the cases that local officials have so far refused to offer.
An expert:
Two cases caught in Erica’s mind. One was a 70-year-old couple, both possibly contagious. She found them, told them to quarantine, and they turned around and hosted a big barbecue on the fourth of July. When she tried to contact guests who might have been infected, she found them dismissive or rude. “You have all these little social networks that are hostile,” he said. “Most of the time they are polite enough to hang up. But I’m trying to develop thick skin. “
The other case that stuck in his head was the methamphetamine dealer. Public health nurses contacted him shortly after he became infected and, although he dismissed his advice, they said he would isolate himself. Erica suspected that he was still sneaking out at night, and her suspicion was confirmed when he infected a friend of hers, who in turn infected her daughter-in-law. The friend’s daughter-in-law, who had no symptoms, went to his job at Alder Bay Assisted Living, a nursing home in Eureka. More than a dozen staff members and residents were infected. Four died.
The chief public information officer for the Humboldt County Joint Information Center, Heather Muller, declined to confirm specific details of the case from the Lewis reports.
“Some data was shared with the journalist that could compromise the privacy of those involved,” Muller wrote in an email to diary. “Because of that, the Joint Information Center cannot confirm this information.”
Elsewhere in the column, Dykehouse is quoted as saying that while the criteria have changed repeatedly over the course of the pandemic, since June his contact investigations have generally focused on a single question: who has he been with? 6 feet for more than 15 minutes? But aside from the specifics of the case, the column’s most important conclusion is that Dykhouse says more and more people are no longer cooperating with contact investigations and instead hanging up on them, not calling back or lashing out.
At first, they had cooperated. Although no one was pleased to learn that they had COVID-19, people respected their authority. They behaved like people before the pandemic, when she told them they needed to isolate themselves. … And they did their best to comply, at least until mid-May, right after the refugee order was lifted at the scene. From then on, her diary tells the story of a disturbing change. People became less and less interested in what she had to say: they seemed to think they knew everything they needed to know. “A lot of these people are taking their medical information off Facebook,” said Erica. People stopped calling him back. People hung on it. People even attacked her. “It is the first time in this job that I have people hanging myself except with sexually transmitted diseases,” Erica said. ‘Most of the time you call and say’ I’m a public health nurse ‘and they call or call you back. We are used to people trusting us. Now they don’t. That has been very strange. … But in late June, Erica and her colleagues felt that everything was moving in the wrong direction. “We feel like we are losing control of the situation,” said one of the county health officials. “People are understanding it and we don’t know where.”
In your email to diaryMuller said Dykehouse’s views do not necessarily reflect those of the county.
“The interview reflects the impressions and experiences of the employee who participated in it and does not necessarily reflect the broader experience of Public Health employees or the status of the ongoing operation,” he wrote before emphasizing the importance of timely testing. “When a county as small as ours receives a particularly large group of cases, we risk overwhelming our resources. That’s why testing and contact tracing are so important. “
Since July 1, Humboldt County has confirmed 95 new COVID-19 cases, 42 percent of the county’s total cases to date.
Lewis is the author of more than a dozen books, including Liar’s Poker, Money ball, The blind side, The great short and Flash boys. Its complete Bloomberg The column is worth reading and can be found here.
