◼ COVID-19 / GOVERNMENT Bloomberg Businessweek March 16, 202020
How did
South Korea
get ahead?
●Howdidtheareahandletherapidly
growingnumberofcases?TheconsequencesweredeadlyforresidentsofLife
CareCenter,a nursinghomeintheSeattlesuburb
ofKirklandthathouseselderlyandoftenverysick
patients.Februarywasanunusuallybusyperiodfor
911 callstothehome,saysEvanHurley,a Kirkland
firefighterandunionrepresentative.Thenumber
wentfromseveninJanuaryto 33 forFebruaryand
thefirstfewdaysofMarch,hesays,citingcalllogs
laterusedtotrackwhichstaffersneededtobequar-
antined.Firefightersweren’talwayswearingmasks;
sometimesthecallswerefora nosebleedorsome
otherproblem,Hurleysays.ButbylateFebruary,
herecalls,a lieutenantremarkedaboutthenum-
berofrecentvisitstoLifeCareforbreathingissues
andfever.A captainsharedtheconcernwiththe
county.Then,onFeb.28,camewordthata patient
transferredfromthehomehadCovid-19.Thefire
departmentdeclaredthefacilitya “hotzone”requir-
ingfullprotectivegear.Aninitialgroupof17 firefight-
erswasquarantined.Thenextday,stateofficials
announcedthefirstdeathintheU.S.attributedtothe
newcoronavirusandsaidthatmorethan 50 people
associatedwithLifeCareweresickandbeingtested.
Thefacility’slow-slungbuildingina nondescript
partoftowndottedwithcondosbecamethecenterof
anunfoldingcrisis.Authoritiesdramaticallyincreased
publicwarnings—while,familiescontended,doing
littletosavepeopleinthehome.“Theyarebeingleft
tobepickedoffonebyonebythisdisease,”Kevin
Connolly,a relative,toldtelevisionreportersoutside.
KingCountyofficialsquicklymovedtopurchasea
motelandsetupmodularhousingtoisolatepatients,
a jarringescalation.Withindaysofthefirstdeaths,
theyadvisedpeopleolderthan 60 tostayaway
frompublicplaces,whileavoidinga totalbanonbig
events.A comic-bookconventionplannedfordown-
townSeattleheldoutuntilMarch6 beforecanceling.
“Wearedeterminedtoprotectthosewhoaremost
vulnerable—ourolderresidents,thosewithcompro-
misedimmunesystems—and, in doing those things,
we also want to protect our economy,” King County
Executive Dow Constantine told reporters.
Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., and other
companies told Seattle-area staff to work from home
if possible, and the University of Washington shifted
to online classes for the rest of the quarter ending
March 20. As of March 8, King County reported 83 cases
and 17 deaths, all but one tied to the nursing home.
The challenge for the health system is that in the
vast majority of cases, symptoms remain mild—but
some percentage of people require hospitalization.At Providence in Everett, where patient zero was
treated, bed space could become an issue. The hospi-
tal has started a program to discharge stable patients,
Diaz says. They’re sent home with a thermometer
and an oximeter, a measurer of respiratory health.
Readings are transmitted to Providence, and if the
patient’s condition worsens, he or she can quickly
be returned to the hospital. Ten patients were in the
program on March 8, Diaz says.
Still, some people complain that area hospitals
aren’t consistently following protocols to isolate pos-
sible cases. On a doctor’s orders, Alicia Hansen on
March 3 took her mother, who’s had cancer multiple
times, to the Swedish Hospital First Hill emergency
room after she developed fever and breathing dif-
ficulties. She and her mother lived together not far
from the nursing home in Kirkland. According to
Hansen, some hospital staff were in and out of her
mother’s room without masks in their first 45 min-
utes at the facility. Hansen herself, who could have
been exposed to the virus, was mixed with the gen-
eral population in a waiting room while her mother
was treated and tested for Covid-19. The test came
back negative, but her mother died on March 7. A
spokesman says the hospital is following WHO’s guide-
lines for dealing with potential Covid-19 patients.
At Life Care on March 6, 15 more people were
hospitalized within 24 hours. Within days, infec-
tions began turning up in other homes. The facility
also serves as a short-term rehabilitation center, and
firefighter Hurley says some of those patients were
discharged to other places in the weeks before the
spread of the virus was known. (Life Care says the
first patient later diagnosed was picked up from the
home on Feb. 19. Hurley says it may have been as
early as Jan. 22, based on call logs.) “We don’t think
we’re anywhere near the end of this,” Hurley says.
“This spread is not limited to Life Care.”
On March 6, a nursing home in Issaquah, a sub-
urb east of Seattle, said a resident tested positive for
Covid-19.Fourdayslater,countyhealthofficialssaid
10 long-termcarefacilitieshadpositivecases.All
told, 31 Kirklandfirefighters have been quarantined—
almost a third of the department—in addition to 10
from other communities, as well as some relatives.
Bedford, the genome expert, is working with
researchers from the University of Washington to
understand the extent of the spread. In early March
the university started using its own virus test, a mod-
ified version of one the World Health Organization
created. When a positive result is found in a sample,
the researchers perform a second round of tests to
sequence the viral genome. Pavitra Roychoudhury,
a university researcher in charge of sequencing, says
technicians have been working late into the night● Number of cases
in King County as of
March 883