VANCOUVER, Wash. – An outbreak of COVID-19 has spread at the PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, WA.
During the past week, according to a statement sent by PeaceHealth, 30 patients tested positive for COVID-19 who were not initially admitted to the virus and tested negative when entering the hospital.
Six employees who have phone calls to care for COVID-19 patients have tested positive and 86 employees have been quarantined to ensure the safety of all PeaceHealth patients and workers.
“Clark County Public Health is working closely with PeaceHealth to ensure that anyone who may have been exposed is notified and all cases are isolated,” said Dr. Alan Melnick, Clark County health officer and director public health. “These steps help protect the health of PeaceHealth patients and staff.”
PeaceHealth said its infection prevention experts began working immediately to understand the root cause of the exposure and help prevent future exposures.
“I have complete confidence in our highly qualified healthcare professionals to deal with this recent incident,” said Lawrence Neville, MD, medical director. . “We have been treating patients with COVID-19 for 11 months and have dispensed almost 600.”
Although PeaceHealth has stated that it has adhered to the CDC and state guidelines, including employees wearing personal protective equipment, face masks, measuring the daily temperature of all employees, testing all admitted patients, restricting visitors and caring for COVID-19 patients on unique and isolated units, the virus still spreads.
“Unfortunately, this is a reminder that COVID remains in our community and can spread very quickly. We must all remain vigilant about physical distance, wearing masks and limiting our meetings, ”said Neville.