SAN JOSE – The Christmas coronavirus fire at Kaiser Permanente San Jose continued to spread Tuesday – and hospital workers aren’t the only ones getting sick.
For the first time, 15 patients were added to the growing list of infected people on Tuesday after an employee went through the emergency department in an inflatable tree suit on December 25 could have been a super-spreader, the Health Department announced Public from Santa Clara County.
The number of positive cases of COVID-19 also rose among Kaiser employees to 77 on Tuesday, up from 60 last week, the county said. A worker, a receptionist, died about a week after Christmas, although Kaiser did not say exactly when.
When it came to the new numbers released on Tuesday, Kaiser Permanente would only say that “we are trying to validate the numbers provided by the county”.
The news comes after the county fined Kaiser $ 43,000 last week for failing to immediately inform officials of the initial 43 cases it made public more than a week later – imposing a $ 1,000 penalty. dollars for each case.
Several agencies are investigating the outbreak, including the state Department of Public Health and Cal / OSHA and Santa Clara County. In a press release in early January, Kaiser suggested that a well-meaning employee spreading holiday cheer could have been the source. The woman in the suit showed no symptoms at the time, but was positive shortly thereafter.
Coronavirus experts say it is possible that the person in the suit was an unknown super-spreader – most people are the most infectious before showing symptoms, and the fan in the inflatable suit could have easily ventilated and spread the virus.
But given that hospital staff have to wear masks and some workers who started their shifts later that day get sick, many questions remain as to whether there could have been another source of the outbreak.
A patient who spoke to this news organization said she was discharged from the emergency department on December 24, the day before the woman in costume appeared. But she tested positive for the virus and is convinced she became infected with Kaiser.