Five San Diego Food Handlers Test Positive for COVID-19

March 30, 2020 at 2:37 AM PDT

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:03 Speaker 1: 00:19 Speaker 2: 00:36 Speaker 1: 00:48 Speaker 2: 01:04 Speaker 3: 02:22 Speaker 2: 02:32 Speaker 4: 03:00 Speaker 5: 03:16 Speaker 4: 03:32 Speaker 6: 03:44 Speaker 4: 04:02 Speaker 2: 04:14 Speaker 7: 04:37 Speaker 2: 04:47 Speaker 3: 05:41 Speaker 8: 05:41 Speaker 9: 05:58 Speaker 10: 06:07 Speaker 11: 06:22 Speaker 10: 06:44 Speaker 11: 06:59 Speaker 10: 07:08 Speaker 7: 07:12 Speaker 10: 07:20 Speaker 7: 07:36 Speaker 10: 07:45 Speaker 7: 08:04 Speaker 10: 08:17 Speaker 11: 08:45 Speaker 2: 08:56 Speaker 3: 09:02 Speaker 8: 09:04 Speaker 2: 09:21 Speaker 3: 09:40 Speaker 2: 09:41 Speaker 12: 09:50 Speaker 2: 09:56 Speaker 2: 10:54 You may have all seen reports about a grocery store. San Diego County officials said Sunday that five food handlers have tested positive for coven 19 for restaurant employees and a grocery store employee. The grocery store employee who tested positive is from an Albertson's store in Escondido. We do not believe that there is any risk to the public at all in this facility or in other food handling facilities. It is really important to note that there is no evidence at all to suggest the transmission of covert 19 uh, associated with food supervisor Nathan Fletcher said the store did the right thing. It closed alerted County environmental health officials followed sanitation protocols then reopened to customers as quickly as I could. But it is important for the public to know that our sources of food are essential services. They must remain open because food is vital to, uh, to everything that we do in a way of life. Also, in today's local headlines, San Diego gas prices have fallen to their lowest point in more than two years. The average for a gallon of self-serve drop to $3 and 11 cents as of Sunday afternoon. Plus the celebrity eclipse cruise ship is scheduled to dock in San Diego. Monday. It was turned away in Chilay amid fears of the coronavirus and there have been no reported cases of coven 19 among the ships, roughly 1,500 passengers, but those passengers are still ordered to return straight home and spend 14 days in home isolation. At this time. The plan is to have those individuals, a screen for symptoms, have their temperatures taken and they will be disembarking with plans to go straight to their homes of record and for the latest on the local Corona virus numbers in San Diego County confirmed cases grew by 31 on Sunday to 519 total. That's remained at seven I'm Kinsey Morlan and you're listening to San Diego news matters. It's Monday, March 30th stick around for more of the local news. You need [inaudible]. As the coronavirus pandemic escalates in San Diego, the county's homeless shelters are now being stretched then as they scrambled to meet the needs of the vulnerable people they serve every day. The Corona virus really has created a perfect storm that's affected all aspects of daily life. For these shelters. They're having staffing struggles and a dramatic decline in donations. I knew source reporter Cody Delaney has more interfaith community services, runs four shelters in North County, including the overnight emergency shelter at Haven house in Escondido when the governor ordered everyone to stay home to stop the spread of coven 19 CEO Greg angel turned Haven house into an all day shelter. With that came a staffing challenge. It requires more staff at a time when we have less staff available. Um, we ha, you know, we have a lot of staff who are over the age of 65 staff with chronic health conditions and so they're all, uh, at home, uh, to comply with the request to do so. And operation hope and Vista executive director charity Singleton needs to raise over a hundred thousand dollars by June 30th to avoid laying people off and making homeless families leave. Our staff works so hard, they're the ones that create the space for our families to be successful. That's what goes through my mind almost, who's 24 hours a day for now. Both of these nonprofits are finding a way to keep their shelters operating for KPBS. I'm I knew source reporter Cody Delaine, so for city of San Diego, lifeguards have now tested positive for the Corona virus. This as all city beaches and parks remain closed. That's an an effort to stop the virus from spreading and this is the first full weekend of those closures and while some people weren't following those warnings before, lifeguard chief James Gartland says, nearly everyone is now complying the success we're seeing in the compliance we're seeing. It's great. It kind of restores your faith in humanity a little bit and makes you proud to be a San Diego surfer. It's still unclear when the beaches and parks could reopen, but we do know lifeguards are preparing for a surge in cases, lifeguards are trained as EMT so they could be called on for extra medical duties. Chief Gartland told KPBS that all lifeguards have the proper protective equipment and we'll help out where they can. The department of veteran affairs is now screening patients for Corona virus in an attempt to protect the already vulnerable veteran population, but some wonder whether the nation's largest health care system will be able to come up with a unified response to the pandemic Carson frame of the American Homefront project. Reports from San Antonio [inaudible], a line of cars, snakes through the ADI Murphy VA hospital campus and spills out onto an adjacent street orange barricades funnel veterans cars toward the front of the hospital pass little white tents. Their VA volunteers ask questions about their travel history and symptoms. A, we're starting our screening process today. What's your purpose? You work here. Do you have a fever, a cough, shortness of breath. If somebody answers yes, they send them to a second area where people wearing masks and gowns check their temperature and ask more questions. The Corona virus outbreak is projected to overwhelm the U S hospital system, but VA secretary Robert Wilkie says veterans will be taken care of. We are in the emergency preparedness business and we started marshaling our supplies in at the beginning of February when our people told us that there was a potential for this coming here, so we have supplies, we have ventilators where we are working with the private sector to get, get as many masks as we need. Wilkies directed the VA to stop all elective surgeries to free up medical personnel and preserve the system's blood supply. Coronavirus cases are expected to climb among veterans who tend to be older and have underlying medical conditions that put them at greater risk. The Wilkie says it hasn't happened yet, to be honest with you. We have not had the great wave of veterans with this virus. It may come, but not everyone at the VA thinks the situation is under control. This epidemic, both for the VA and for the larger world exposes all the weaknesses in our system that are already there. Maryland park is a legislative representative with the American Federation of government workers, a union that represents many VA employees. She says they're not getting enough guidance from top officials in D C and that the Corona virus response is a patchwork that compromises the safety of both health care workers and patients. Each facility has a different screening procedure. Different entrances are closed, different screening questions are being asked, different triages going on. Since the virus emerged in Wu Han China in December, members of Congress have pressed VA about its ability to handle a pandemic. VA representatives told Congress in March that up to one in five veteran patients could become infected and need care. Senator John tester of Montana says the department has been slow to talk about its needs and plans. Well, I'll just be honest with you, if they could have extra beds, I don't know that they have the staff to manage them as is the problem because we've, we've been understaffed in the VA for for a number of years and a number of administrations I might add. The VA is the nation's largest healthcare system with 172 medical facilities and more than 1200 outpatient sites, but it's also spread out with each center acting with a high degree of independence at a time when moving people supplies and equipment is necessary to save lives. Test or warriors coordination could be a challenge to deal with that. The VA has set up emergency operation centers in each of its 18 networks. Wilkie says those centers are sharing the same information across all medical facilities. Those centers reflect policy coming from us on what the protocol is for dealing with, um, this, it is no different at Audie Murphy than it is from hot Springs, South Dakota. It's the same medical standard [inaudible] at Audie Murphy hospital in San Antonio, medical director Chris sandals washed the screenings in the parking lot. We're making adjustments where we need to in the process, but ultimately my goal was to make sure that we're keeping both our patients and staff as safe as we possibly can. But he says it's a moving target. This is Carson frame reporting. That story was produced by the American Homefront project. That's a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and bets funding comes from the corporation for public broadcasting. [inaudible] we have all seen our live shift online. Um, my friends and I joined the masses of people holding virtual happy hours over the weekend. Wow, thanks to everyone who joined. Is it going to be fun? Um, give a, uh, give it 30 seconds, get the link up there and then we'll start. And there's also an app called house party that's gaining a lot of steam. I keep getting invites and alerts from it. You can basically video chat and play games like Pictionary on it. It's something to pass the time and feel just a little bit less isolated than we all really are right now. Check it out if you're an extrovert like me who having a little bit of a hard time with all this social distancing. Okay. And before I go, I wanted to read you a quick question and answer from the KPBS newsrooms Q and a blog. Lots of KPBS listeners and readers have been writing in with their coven 19 related questions and our reporters are doing their best to find the answers. So here's a question from Muriel. Muriel writes, my HOA is split on whether to close our pool. Half of them say it should be closed and the other half say the chlorine in the pool kills coronavirus and so swimming is safe, which is true. KPBS news reporter John Carroll did some research on this and he found that the CDC says there's no evidence that coven 19 can be spread to humans through the use of pools and hot tubs. So with proper maintenance operation, disinfection of pools and hot tubs, that should remove or inactivate the virus that causes Cobin 19 but there's a, but that being said, the city of San Diego has closed all its pools days ago. The issue there though was people gathering together in one spot, not the safety of the pool itself. So Muriel, if you can enjoy your HOA is pool without the chance of anyone else being around you, that could be okay. But John says it's best to err on the side of caution and avoid using community pools. For now, for more questions and answers like this related to coven 19 check out kbps.org/ [inaudible] coronavirus questions. That's it for today. Thanks for listening and please do me a favor and take a minute. Right now you're probably on your computer, on your phone. Just just open another tab. Do this right now. Before you forget, send this podcast to a friend. Local news keeps our community connected and now staying connected is more important than ever. Thanks.

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San Diego County health officials said Sunday that five food handlers have tested positive for COVID-19 — four restaurant employees and a grocery store employee. Plus: the county's homeless shelters are struggling to meet the needs of the people they serve amid the coronavirus pandemic and more local news you need.