SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – When the coronavirus appeared in the US this year, public health homeless officials and advocates feared the virus would rip through shelters and tents, destroying vulnerable people who often have chronic health problems.
They scrambled to move people to hotel rooms, set fire to shelters and moved tents to designated places at sanctioned outdoor camps.
While shelters saw some major COVID-19 outbreaks, the virus so far does not appear to have wreaked havoc on the homeless population, as many feared. However, researchers and lawyers say much is unknown about how the pandemic affected an estimated half a million homeless people in the US
In a country that has surpassed 5 million identified cases and 169,000 deaths, researchers do not know why there seem to be so few outbreaks among the homeless.
‘I’m shocked, I think I can say it, because it’s a very vulnerable population. I do not know what we will see in the aftermath, “said Dr. Deborah Borne, who oversees health policy for COVID-19 homeless response to the Department of Public Health in San Francisco.” That’s why it’s called a new virus, to we do not know. ”
More than 200 of an estimated 8,000 homeless people in San Francisco have tested positive for the virus, and half came from an outbreak at a homeless shelter in April. One homeless man is one of the city’s 69 dead.
In other places with large homeless populations, the numbers are the same. In King County, which includes Seattle, more than 400 of an estimated 12,000 homeless residents have been diagnosed. In Los Angeles County, more than 1,200 of an estimated 66,000 homeless people have been diagnosed.
It is slightly higher in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, where nearly 500 of an estimated 7,400 homeless people have tested positive, including nine who died.
Health experts say the figures do not indicate how widespread the disease is or how it can play out in the long run. It is unknown how many people died due to circumstances indirectly related to the virus. While the coronavirus can spread outside more easily than inside, living outside has its own risks.
With public libraries and other places closed, homeless people say they are short of food and water, toilets and cash. In San Francisco, 50 homeless people died in a period of eight weeks in April and May – twice the regular rate, said Dr. Barry Zevin, medical director of the public health program of public health.
The official causes are pending, but Zevin notes that fentanyl overdoses are going up and house-to-house orders can prevent people from getting help quickly. He knew that isolation could result in more overdoses.
“I think that happened, and whether it was more or less than I would have expected, I do not know,” he said. “It’s frustrating to predict something as a problem, to do everything possible to avoid it as a problem, but it’s definitely a case of competing priorities.”
Good data is difficult to obtain for the homeless population because hospitals and death certificates do not track housing status, says Dr. Margot Kushel, director of the Center for Vulnerable Populations at the University of California, San Francisco.
She was hesitant to draw conclusions about how the pandemic has affected the entire homeless, but said “this could be an example where outside and unprotected, simply in terms of COVID, people might be less inferior. But again “Part of it is that we just do not know.”
New York City has reported more than 1,400 infections and 104 deaths among homeless residents from more than 226,000 positive cases and 19,000 deaths. Roughly 60,000 people live in shelters, in contrast to the West Coast cities where many more are unprotected.
But because shelters in New York have more children than the general population, as deaths are adjusted for age, the mortality rate for the homeless is 67% higher than for the general population, said Giselle Routhier, policy director for the Coalition for the Homeless.
“That is, in our opinion, extremely high,” she said.
While lawyers are pushing for private hotel rooms for the homeless, a massive 1,200-person shelter in the San Diego convention center shows it is possible to keep the case count low by strictly adhering to 6-foot (2-meter) spaces, frequent cleaning and masks clothing.
“We have a team of firefighters running the floors to put the children back where they should be,” said fire chief Chris Heiser, who is in charge of incidents for the shelter.
He estimates that about 3,000 people have passed through. And of more than 6,000 COVID-19 tests administered, 18 have been positive so far. San Diego County has reported more than 200 positive cases and no deaths among its nearly 8,000 homeless.
Richard Scott, who is in his mid-50s, moved to the convention center about three months ago after his roommate, who is medically fragile, told him he could stay home and could not work. or leave. Since then, Scott has slept with about 500 men in a cave in a cave room with high ceilings and a large floor.
Sometimes there is a theft as a disruptive person, but overall Scott calls it a safe place to stay.
“We wash our hands 20 times a day – well some of us – and we get our temperatures checked every day, and they’ve been strict about that too,” Scott said. ‘I’m so glad I’m here; it is a blessing. ”
Virginia McShane, 63, sleeps in a separate part of downtown. She arrived in April after she could no longer afford a hostel of $ 25 a night.
“We have a rear entrance and a front entrance, and that keeps the air circulating freely, so I think that’s why we did not all get away with the coronavirus,” she said.
The rates at which homeless people have tested positive for COVID-19 are all over the place, says Barbara DiPietro, senior policy director for the National Health Care Council for the Homeless, who works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the ‘ the issue.
Inspection tests of more than 10,000 people at dishes and campsites nationwide have resulted in a rate of just over 8%. But DiPietro says more than 200 homeless resident tests in five cities showed rates ranging from 0 to 66%.
“That this is a wild variant, moving target, depending on who and how and when you test,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Anita Snow contributed to this Phoenix story.
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