Whatcom medics given a clean bill of health, so far, in fight against coronavirus
More than five weeks after Whatcom County reported its first resident had tested positive for COVID-19, the county has yet to confirm any of its medics have contracted the new coronavirus.
In fact, Whatcom County Emergency Medical Services Manager Mike Hilley told The Bellingham Herald only 10 to 15 have even been tested for the respiratory illness so far.
“Nobody’s really been sick,” Hilley said Thursday, April 16. “I think we’ve had ... one guy who had a bad flu and another that had strep throat. Most of the tests were pretty early in, and they had cold symptoms and got tested, and they all came back negative.”
Hilley definitely doesn’t want to tempt fate, as he knows emergency medical responders around the country have not been as fortunate.
As of Thursday afternoon, the International Association of Fire Fighters COVID-19 tracking map reported that 14,520 members had been exposed to the coronavirus in the United States and Canada, 7,417 members had been quarantined, 4,081 members had been isolated, 57 had been hospitalized and six had died.
“I feel horrible for the guys on the East Coast,” Hilley said. “There’s been at least two or three EMT or paramedic deaths, and those are line-of-duty deaths.”
Closer to Whatcom County, the firefighter union’s tracking map reports 13 members in Seattle tested positive for COVID-19 along with five in Marysville, two in Renton and one each in Everett, Bellevue and South King County.
Fewer calls
Hilley credits county residents as a big part of the reason why no Whatcom medics have been added to those numbers.
“One thing that has really, really helped is the city and county shutting things down and people following that,” Hilley said. “It’s keeping our workforce healthy. Our call volume is down — we’re not seeing car wrecks and other calls like that. People are still out doing essential activities, but there are not as many people out there, so our medical calls have gone down.”
Though Hilley said his staff is processing how much the call volume has gone down and what percentage of calls are initially believed to be related to COVID-19, the reduced call volume is noticeable.
Being prepared
The other element that has helped keep Whatcom’s medics healthy to this point, Hilley said, is some good, old-fashioned luck.
Before moving to Whatcom County, Hilley said he spend 30 years working in King County and Kirkland, where the nation’s first coronavirus cases and its first cluster at the Life Care Center were reported.
“Every one of the guys I’ve talked to down there said that it caught them by surprise,” Hilley said. “When the first positive came out of Everett, (Whatcom County Medical Program Director Dr. Marvin Wayne) got anxious and made sure we had proper PPE (personal protection equipment) for everybody. On Feb. 20, we started teaching awareness and guidance to everyone.
“That way when we had our first positive up here, we were pretty prepared in our approach. We’re lucky it didn’t hit us first. We had time to prepare.”
By early March, Hilley reported Whatcom medics were utilizing protocols to help protect them and prevent the spread of the illness and Whatcom County dispatchers were asking additional screening questions of callers experiencing fever and flu-like symptoms to let medics know if they needed to take respiratory precautions.
Those protocols have remained in place, though Hilley said a few new ones have been added, including medics making the assumption coronavirus is in all nursing homes and taking proper precautions on all calls to those facilities.
Well stocked
A large enough supply of PPE has allowed them to do so, Hilley said.
“There was a spot there about three weeks in, where we were a little nervous about the burn rate on PPE,” Hilley said. “But we were able to build our stockpile back up, and all responders have good PPE.”
Hilley hopes with that, the community continuing to obey orders to stay home and a little more luck, all Whatcom County medics can continue to stay healthy and ready to serve throughout the duration of the pandemic.
“We really do want to thank everybody for playing a role in this,” Hilley said. “Us having a healthy workforce helps everyone.”
