COMMUNITY NEWS
COVID Toll: 33 Deaths E
“Dependable Service, Affordable Quality”
By Jondi Gumz
ight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, with winter drawing nigh, Santa Cruz County has 1,134 active cases, with the first outbreak at the jail, 33 deaths including four in Capitola, no end in sight, but some state help on the horizon. On Nov. 30, Gov. Newsom announced a $500 million relief program to provide grants of up to $25,000 to small businesses and nonprofits distributed through community development financial institutions, such as Bay Federal Credit Union in Capitola, Santa Cruz Community Credit Union and California Farm Link in Santa Cruz, Cal Coastal Rural Development in Salinas, and Opportunity Fund in San Jose. Rules will be set by California’s Office of the Small Business Advocate. Applications will be accepted until Jan. 15 for the $100 million Main Street hiring tax credit, $1,000 for each employee rehired. Details about the SB1447 program are at https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/ SB1447-tax-credit.htm. In the past month, most of the Santa Cruz County COVID fatalities were at nursing homes, but one death was not: A Latino man in his 80s with an underlying condition living in South County, which has 61 percent of the cases. Scotts Valley has 123 cases. On Nov. 30, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office reported nine correctional officers tested positive for COVID-19 and are off work. Another six officers are quarantined, based on contact with infected coworkers, but no jail inmates have shown symptoms or tested positive, according to the Sheriff’s Office, which planned to test all correctional staff and inmates. Contact tracers from the county Health Services Agency are trying to determine the source of the outbreak. The initial tests were spurred by jail officers showing symptoms at work, according to the Sheriff’s Office, which put screening protocols in place in March to prevent an outbreak. The state reports more than 19,000 people have died because of COVID-19. Active cases are increasing dramatically, prompting health officials on Nov. 16 to put Santa Cruz County and much of California into the “Purple Tier,” which has the most restrictions on business operations, forcing restaurants, theaters, gyms, worship places to offer services outdoors only, and to adopt new rules for employers for the next six months, requiring them to fix workplace situations allowing the virus to spread, pay for testing when workers are exposed, provide masks and make sure workers wear them. At Pacific Coast Manor in Capitola, four residents died of COVID-19. This is the third nursing home in the county with COVID deaths despite health officials banning visitors and requiring surveillance testing of staff to prevent the virus from getting in.
Owned by Covenant Care, the 99-bed Pacific Coast Manor reported the four deaths on Dec. 2, noting 61 residents and 37 employees tested positive for the virus. In Santa Cruz, two elderly residents died of COVID-19, one at Santa Cruz Post Acute, a 149-bed nursing home owned by Kindred, and the other at Maple House II, a 40-bed residential care facility for the elderly under local ownership. A woman in her mid80s with underlying conditions died Nov. 10 at Santa Cruz Post Acute. The outbreak began Nov. 7. At least 29 residents there and 15 staff tested positive. A Caucasian woman in her mid90s with a significant condition died Nov. 14 at Maple House II, county Public Health spokeswoman Corinne Hyland said. That outbreak began Oct. 31 and spread to 10 staff and 14 residents. The state fined Santa Cruz Post Acute $1,000 for failure to submit COVID-19 data on three occasions: June 6, Aug. 3 and Oct. 9. “This failure resulted in incomplete data reported to the Department necessary to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak,” the state citation reads. “These failures had the potential to compromise the residents’ medical health and safety.” Wrongful Death Lawsuit On Nov. 10, the family of Donald Wickham sued Watsonville Post Acute, where he died Oct. 20 after contracting COVID-19, alleging elder abuse and neglect and wrongful death and seeking an unspecified amount of damages. Wickham, 94, was one of 16 residents who died of COVID at Watsonville Post Acute; 50 of 74 residents and 21 staff became infected. The lawsuit filed by Santa Cruz attorney David Spini of Scruggs, Spini & Fulton on behalf of Wickham’s son John, alleges the owners understaffed the nursing home to improve profits, brought in licensed vocational nurses and certified nursing assistants from other locations, increasing the potential for introducing the virus, and provided inadequate training to prevent infectious diseases, allowing 70 percent of the residents to contract the virus. Spini noted infection control procedures at Watsonville Post Acute were found lacking six times by the state Department of Public Health, with an Oct. 6 report pointing out a housekeeper was not screened for symptoms of COVID before starting work. In 2016, the state fined Watsonville Post Acute, which is owned by CF Watsonville West, a limited liability company in Los Angeles, $10,000 after a resident diagnosed with dementia left the premises and was found outside lying on a sidewalk with a fractured jaw.
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Residential Repaints & If we paint your interior and/or Custom Homes exterior by December 31, 2020 Homeowners Associations we will buy the paint. Property Managers
“33 Deaths” page 8
www.tpgonlinedaily.com Scotts Valley Times / December 2020 / 7
