Mendocino County’s First Potential COVID-19 Death Being Investigated by Public Health
Mendocino County’s Public Health Officer Dr. Noemi Doohan has confirmed that a local resident passed away Wednesday, July 1, out-of-county after contracting COVID-19 from the outbreak associated with an Assembly of God church in Mendocino County. It should be noted officials are awaiting further information to decide if the individual’s death should be attributed to COVID-19. Redheaded Blackbelt will be withholding the name of the decedent and the family out of respect for family wishes.
According to the decedent’s grandson, his grandfather contracted COVID-19 while volunteering in the church’s kitchen preparing meals for the needy.
The decedent’s grandson described his grandfather in a Facebook post as “the strongest and most loving human being I’ve ever known.”
Facebook post by the grandson of the deceased man used with his permission.
The Facebook post goes on to say, “6 weeks ago he was diagnosed with Covid-19. Before that, he was still a strong healthy 79-year-old man, still active and going strong. He spent his 80th birthday in the hospital struggling for his life. It’s the first fight he’s ever lost.”
According to a social media post on the Facebook page Willits Community Events and Concerns, “[T]he gentleman was hospitalized locally and then transferred to an out of county facility.”
Dr. Doohan clarified that the individual “did not die in a hospital.”
The grandson said his grandfather passed away in a Marin County rehabilitation facility.
The social media post on the Willits’ page goes on to explain the decedent “never recovered although he was removed from our hospitalizations and moved to recovered status as the 10 day quarantine period was over.”
According to the grandson, the county reported his grandfather as “recovered” though he was still testing positive for COVID-19. When he was transferred down to Marin for full rehabilitation, he was still testing positive for the virus.
Dr. Doohan assured us by email that “There have been no other deaths of residents of our county who have had COVID that I am aware of – certainly no other deaths related to COVID.” She went on to say, “This is the first potentially COVID related death.”
As to which county the COVID-19 death would be attributed, Dr. Doohan said, “We will know more on Monday including to which county the death will be attributed and if it will be counted as COVID related. I have reached out to the State for assistance in these determinations.”
The grandson said he expects his grandfather’s death will be attributed to Mendocino County as long as his death certificate reflects that he passed from COVID-19 because those attributions are based on the address of the decedent.
For any Mendocino County residents with concerns regarding COVID-19, contact the county’s COVID-19 call center at (707) 234-6052.
UPDATE 7/6: The family provided a letter to the Potter Valley/Redwood Valley, Mendocino Fire &Traffic Alerts/Resources Facebook page. To see, click here.
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Potential COVID-19 Death
Potential does seem to be an important word.
Hummm. Adventist Howard Memorial Hospital in Willits is infamous for moving patients out to rehabilitation knowing damn well that they still need more medical care than is given in rehabilitation or post acute. They have a very pushy outpatient social worker who literally pushes people out the door. There was Covid 19 in HMH in January, and they pushed those patients out before there were covid 19 tests available.
There is no post acute or available rehabilitation beds anywhere near Willits so patients nearly 80% of the time must go to Sonoma, Marin or San Francisco Alameda Counties. There is no County notice of this fact; there has not been enough rehab or post acute beds for 2 decades in Mendocino County. Many times people die alone away from their families and elderly loved ones who cannot afford the expense to visit in their loved ones final days. This is a travesty. Why does Adventist push patients who still need care out the door at such a pushy pace? This is a very common occurence. My condolences for your families loss.
Great job writing this up Kym.
Matt wrote it. I just published it.
On the topic of post acute care beds, I just wanted to chime in because I had to choose one for my mother very recently. She was in the Ukiah hospital and was given 3 choices for in county facilities. I looked into them and had to make the choice to send her out of county because the local facilities had such poor reviews. I chose Cloverdale because they had great reviews and looked good online. I DO NOT recommend them! If patients need anything more than some physical therapy, they should be kept in the hospital instead. I left my mom there for 8 days before I was able to get her out. She’s been home for 3 days. I won’t get into details because I’m not a novelist, but it was a nightmare. I can’t imagine sending someone there who needs medical care and healthcare professionals should know better!
I hate to say it, but there are almost no “good” nursing homes anywhere. Even in major cities where there could be a hundred nursing homes/”rehabilitation facilities”, only two or three could be considered “good”. In most cases it would be better to have in-home care and in-home physical therapy, provided the house was physically able to accommodate it.
Perhaps because of low paid overworked essential people along with teachers, janitors, grocery workers, farm workers etc etc. Wages do not match the hard work of essentials. CEOs and cush jobs pay a living wage. We got this upside down economically and ethically. Somethings got to give this is ridiculous.
Part of the reason for this is although those people do a lot of good work, they are just workers. I have a feeling you have never tried to start your own business? The overhead and fees and crap that always needs to be paid and reported to the state is absurd. Then you face inflated taxes on top of that, not to mention payroll taxes to even cut employees their checks. You rail against business owners who are being eaten away at both ends financially in this state just to give workers a job. Workers are paid low wages because thats about all a business owner can pay out while still giving themselves a check and keeping the business afloat. Maybe check the burden of licensing and operational fees as well as taxes that are financially burying business owners before you point your finger at them. Maybe you should point your finger at the entity causing all these problems behind the scenes, the same entity in fact, that many people are looking to to solve these issues: the state. Sometimes the irony is just sickening.
This man sounds like a very good person and a sad loss to his community.
Very sad indeed! RIP prayers for the family!
Hospitalized locally and then transferred to an out of county facility, should of been in the P.H. stats as Hospitalized and not as recovered 🤔
Thank you for researching this!
Prayers for this man’s loved ones. He was an angel on earth helping so many. God bless you Sir!
It really concerns me that the PHO is designating people “recovered” at the end of a 10 day isolation when they may not actually be recovered. I think the designation needs to be changed to “out of isolation” and that we should only be deeming patients “recovered” when they have been medically evaluated and determined to have actually recovered medically. I have seen a lot of people commenting on the number of those “recovered” in the Public Health updates, which may be giving the community a false sense of security and may be misleading the community if some of those patients are still ill (as it seems may have been the case with this patient). I would love for you to continue to look into this designation of “recovered” and help make sure that the Public Health department is giving us accurate and honest information about patient status. Thanks for reporting on this.
A Travesty. My 86 yr old mom was killed by our local hospital, not Garberville. We only left her side for a few hours& said we wld hire a private nurse, but they said they wld keep a good eye on her. Well, they did not. She was stable& happy when we left, and upon return in late afternoon, she was critical, due to her oxygen hose coming out of her nostrils, and not being detected in time. There was also feces in her bed! Because of the low oxygen levels, her lungs accumulated fluid, so they wld no longer give her the post-op pain meds from her broken hip surgery. She was in agonizing pain& begging for 12 hours for relief! The staff was rude to me, as I was pleading on her behalf for relief of her pain. This was her last day on earth& a memory I will never forget. Especially since it did not need to happen this way. I doubt if my tale is unusual.
I’m so sorry about your Mom.
She couldn’t get her pain meds because the NIH,FDA and CDC have made them part of the war on drugs.
Actually it’s a war on pain patients.
But we let go people caught with 4.5 pounds of poison.
AMA: ‘CDC Guideline Has Harmed Many Patients’
https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2020/6/19/ama-cdc-guideline-has-harmed-many-patients
I wonder what happens when you use a contaminated test kit on someone? Especially if it’s the kind you ram up their nose.
Four years before the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fumbled the nation’s chance to begin effective early testing for the novel coronavirus, the agency similarly mishandled its efforts to detect another dreaded pathogen.
Amid a feared outbreak of the newly emerged Zika virus, senior CDC officials in 2016 sidelined an effective test for it – and instead directed public health laboratories nationwide to use a more complicated test that failed about one-third of the time.
The agency’s response to Zika now stands as an unheeded prequel for how the CDC stumbled this year as it confronted the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 125,000 lives nationwide.
the rest of the story…
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Four-years-before-the-CDC-fumbled-coronavirus-15385983.php
Robert S. Lanciotti, a virologist who headed the CDC’s diagnostic efforts with Zika until May 2016 – when the agency stripped him of his leadership role after he warned against distributing the deficient test kits – said the decision-making with the coronavirus mirrored what he witnessed.
“This is exactly the same mistake I saw during Zika,” Lanciotti said in interviews with The Post.
Lanciotti said that by shelving effective tests in favor of less reliable approaches, CDC officials “slowed things down and screwed things up.”
As reported in The Post in 2016, Lanciotti had raised concerns then that the CDC’s preferred Zika test missed infections and that the agency withheld information about its deficiencies from local lab officials.
CDC officials did not respond to questions for this article.
Former CDC Director Tom Frieden, who led the agency’s efforts against Zika in 2016, praised its overall performance with that virus and defended the decisions made with the Zika test.
“Any test can get improved with time,” Frieden said. “And any action can be looked back on. . . . In the course of refining the test, you expect it to get better with time.”
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Four-years-before-the-CDC-fumbled-coronavirus-15385983.php
We hear the truth 4 years later but we are told , Believe the scientists?
Qui Bono.
It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Always has been, always will be.
ChinaVirus just getting started in Mendo..
Laytonville CalFire station closing due to staff covid infections.
Do you mean Covid-19 or is there another virus called ChinaVirus??? Yes I know about the Leggett and Laytonville …..”COVID-19 outbreak with our friends at CalFIRE. In the past 48 hours, 6 have tested positive. Leggett and Laytonville CalFire stations are sending all firefighters home for isolation and quarantine. These CalFire stations will be deep cleaned and closed for 72 hours after the cleaning. Local VFDs are not impacted, but could play a greater role this summer and have not been able to host annual fundraisers. Please help support your volunteer departments by donation of time or money.” No mention of a ChinaVirus.
Its actually the Kung Flu