The coronavirus has infected California medical workers with much greater intensity than has been publicly revealed, including more than 175 cases at UCLA, according to records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times and a source with knowledge of the situation.
The virus has spread in UCLA’s outpatient clinics, geriatric and labor and delivery units, and in the pediatric intensive care unit, the source told The Times.
The infections at healthcare facilities include at least eight cases involving medical workers at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica; 30 at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in San Pedro who are positive or awaiting results; six at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in Silicon Valley, including one death; 10 at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento; five at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; and hundreds scattered among numerous elder care and assisted living sites throughout the state.
“Because hospitals are not being forthcoming with the information on their employees, I am sure there are clusters that nobody even knows about,” said Steve Trossman, public affairs director of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), which represents nearly 100,000 healthcare workers. “That is just wrong for people not to know that their local hospital has an outbreak.”
In multiple instances, the cluster of cases could not be confirmed beyond interviews with administrators, staff and those infected. Hospitals and other medical facilities are not required to disclose known clusters; no law mandates it, and state and county authorities have largely left it to facilities to self-report.
Medical professionals interviewed by The Times suspect staff members may be passing the virus among themselves. In some cases, they said, shortages of personal protective equipment may be an apparent cause. All of the hospitals with outbreaks said their staff has access to appropriate protective gear.
Asked how many employees have tested positive for the virus, a spokesman for UCLA Health replied in an email, “I don*t have information for you about specific groups of COVID-positive cases.”
The spokesman noted that UCLA reports data to the county Department of Public Health.
Providence Southern California, which owns St. John’s and Little Company of Mary, said Thursday that it had 49 work-related COVID-19 exposures across its 35,000 employees in 11 hospitals, but it declined to name specific facilities.
Cedars-Sinai spokesman Duke Helfand disputed that the hospital had a cluster of cases but acknowledged that some staff may be affected. He added that all staff were being screened before their shifts. UC Davis declined to say how many workers were infected, citing privacy reasons.