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A senior health official at a Vancouver hospital system said he did not know how COVID-19 had spread from one patient to 29 other people, including 18 additional patients, and the hospital could not not rule out a more transmissible form of the coronavirus.
The cause of the December outbreak at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center is still under investigation. But Dr Lawrence Neville, Chief Medical Center for the PeaceHealth Columbia Network, said on Monday that the Vancouver Hospital COVID-19 cluster could be traced to a patient who initially tested negative on admission to hospital for be tested positive a few days later.
“It is an unfortunate anomaly that this has happened,” Neville said at a press conference with reporters.
Patients admitted and tested negative for the virus are not required to wear masks, but are encouraged to do so, Neville said, and the patient in question wore a mask.
It is not known how many other infected patients were not wearing masks, but Neville said the hospital is “doubling down” and stepping up efforts around mask adherence. Neville did not specifically say what this entails, and it does not appear that masks are necessary for all patients. Likewise, vaccines are not required for employees.
He said the outbreak was emblematic of the prevalence of the disease in Vancouver and the surrounding community. Clark County reported 976 active cases and 13,692 known cases throughout the pandemic on Monday. Neville said PeaceHealth’s Vancouver Hospital had a record 56 active COVID patients, with eight of those people in intensive care.
The hospital first learned of the positive test for the patient at the center of the epidemic on December 27. The next day, two more patients in the medical department were asymptomatic but tested positive for the virus. Authorities shut down the ward to all new patients a day later and each COVID-positive patient was transferred to a different ward.
“We tested all of the patients in the hospital just to make sure the problem was isolated in that one unit,” Neville said, “and it was.”
Initial numbers released by the hospital last week showed 30 patients tested positive, but Neville said the information was not accurate and the tally included both patients and employees.
As of Monday, 56 healthcare workers remained in quarantine as a precaution due to the 11 confirmed cases among staff members. Neville said some of those infected workers had already received their first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
PeaceHealth said it submitted samples on Monday to determine whether COVID-19 was a mutated form of the virus, which has been seen in several states and prompted the UK to issue another wave of lockdowns.
Neville said it “is not impossible” that the outbreak could be linked to this more transmissible form of the virus, but he said the same prevention strategies of handwashing, personal protective equipment and limited social interactions would apply.
He said the results won’t be known for 10 to 14 days on genomic sequencing to see if Washington has the rapidly spreading COVID variant documented elsewhere.
The first patient who first tested negative was hospitalized for medical necessity, Neville said, not for elective surgery. The hospital has since further restricted its surgeries and shut down the infected ward for a deep cleaning from January 1.
Neville said the 19 infected patients and 11 workers were “doing fine,” saying he was unaware that anyone in that group was admitted to the ICU on Sunday.
Oregon has had its share of hospital workplace outbreaks, including 29 cases at Providence Portland Medical Center, the most recent case on Christmas Day. Other workplace outbreaks in Oregon medical centers include Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg (61), McKenzie Willamette Medical Center in Springfield (33), and others.
– Andrew Theen; [email protected]; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen
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