Berkeley residents are now going to have to learn about a deadly bacterial disease called leptospirosis, which has broken out at an encampment there and already killed two dogs, and it could also spread to and kill humans.

There has long been a persistent and potentially dangerous homeless encampment at Harrison and Eighth streets in Berkeley, one which occupies about three whole city blocks. But the level of potential danger there has just escalated to DEFCON One, as the Chronicle reports that encampment is now the site of an outbreak of a deadly disease called leptospirosis, a tropical disease that is not common in the US, which has killed two dogs at the encampment, and could potentially spread to and kill humans as well.

Leptospirosis (casually known as “lepto”) is a bacterial disease that the CDC says “can lead to kidney damage, meningitis (inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord), liver failure, trouble breathing, and even death.” The Chronicle says that two dogs at that encampment have been confirmed to have been killed by the disease, and their testing has confirmed it has spread among rats in the area — with rats being the disease's main transmission vector. Now that the disease is there, it could potentially spread to and kill a person or multiple people.

"The absence of confirmed human cases is reassuring but does not remove the risk of undiagnosed cases or future cases," Berkeley Public Health Officer Noemi Doohan said in a court filing and subsequent public health alert. "If a human case were confirmed, that would elevate the urgency of the recommended response to protect human life and other animal life in the city of Berkeley."

And so the City of Berkeley is recommending that all encampment residents clear the “red zone” shown in the map above, allowing public health officials to clean and disinfect the area. KTVU reports they’re also urging pet owners to vaccinate their dogs and cats for leptospirosis, noting that pets suffering from lepto can suffer from "excessive thirst, vomiting, shivering, and lethargy, and can progress to liver failure if untreated. Lepto can also be fatal to dogs."

KTVU also adds that for humans, leptospirosis can cause sudden fevers, headaches, severe calf or leg pain, kidney or liver failure, meningitis, liver failure, and possibly even death.

So people are being ordered to move out of the encampment, something Berkeley has been unable to get them to do for years. That is going to be hard enough, but then you have the issue that any infected RVs must also be fully destroyed. You try explaining to a homeless person living in an RV that they have to destroy their vehicle, for absolutely nothing in return.

Eighth and Harrison is already a particularly complicated encampment situation, where the residents currently have the legal upper hand to stay put. Berkeley has been trying to sweep this encampment for more than nine months, even before the deadly disease outbreak. But a federal judge ruled last June that they must halt all encampment sweeps at the site, in response to a lawsuit brought by the Berkeley Homeless Union.

That judge, US District Judge Edward Chen, just had an emergency hearing on the matter Tuesday, in response to the outbreak. Chen still kept the restraining order against forced clearing of the encampment in place. That is a legal win for the encampment residents.  

“The city has only exacerbated health and safety issues,” the Berkeley Homeless Union’s attorney Anthony Prince told the Chronicle. “The city itself has created this health crisis.”

You also have the very thorny issue of how to notify encampment residents that they must leave, even though the City of Berkeley cannot force them to leave. The Berkeley Scanner reports that “On Monday, UC Berkeley sent the city's health alert to residents of University Village on the Albany-Berkeley border on the north side of the creek.” Okay that’s great, but how many unhoused people received such notification?

The Berkeley Scanner also points out that these flyers have been posted around North Berkeley, which I suppose is helpful, but seems nowhere near urgent enough a strategy for the situation at hand.

Clearly the City of Berkeley is between a rock and a hard place, racing against deadly infectious disease, but with their hands tied at clearing the disease from the geographic area where it is most concentrated. It sure seems like putting people up in hotels might be a good accommodation, to give encampment residents some/any motivation to leave the area when they legally do not have to?

That may sound like an expensive solution. But if a non-homeless person with access to good lawyers were to die because this disease spread from an encampment, the City of Berkeley could be on the hook for a settlement of tens of millions of dollars. So a few dozen hotel rooms for a month might be the vastly more cost-effective option here.

Related: Omicron Outbreaks Hit Multiple Bay Area Homeless Shelters, Including Two In SF [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

At least 43 staff members at the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Emergency Department have tested positive for COVID-19 within the past week. The unlikely culprit for the explosive outbreak? An inflatable Christmas costume.

COVID-19 can live for quite a bit on various surfaces, particularly porous or textured ones like textiles and papers. (Though as we're learning: certain variants of coronavirus can live for either hours or days outside of the body, depending on the strain.) But the most common carrier for COVID-19 continues to be airborne respiratory droplets — so one might surmise that allowing someone to wear an air-powered holiday costume inside an emergency might be a recipe for disaster.

“A staff member did appear briefly in the emergency department on Dec. 25th wearing an air-powered costume,” said Irene Chavez, senior vice president and area manager of Kaiser’s San Jose Medical Center, to the Chronicle. “ Any exposure, if it occurred, would have been completely innocent, and quite accidental, as the individual had no COVID symptoms and only sought to lift the spirits of those around them during what is a very stressful time.”

This past week, it was confirmed 43 staff members at the South Bay emergency room have tested positive for the novel respiratory disease. Among the infected include on-site physicians, nurses, technicians, and medical assistants. As Chavez notes, individuals with confirmed positive results — as well as those who might have been in contact with the disease — have been asked to follow strict isolation protocols.

Thankfully, because Kaiser Permanente’s health care workers are offered weekly COVID-19 testing, the outbreak appears to have been quickly recognized and allowed for various containment strategies to fall into place in a timely manner; that wasn't so much the case for the Orinda and Laguna Honda skilled nursing facilities during the pandemic’s infancy, however.

“All our health care workers will be offered weekly testing for COVID-19 and expedited testing for anyone with symptoms or exposure to a person with COVID-19,” Chavez continued. “Masks are required in all areas and we are further re-configuring our processes and common spaces, such as staff break rooms, to limit any staff gatherings.”

Suffice to say she, too, added that they will no longer allow air-powered costumes in the building (for now obvious reasons).

According to Chavez, some 40,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers in the Bay Area have received coronavirus vaccinations, with additional rollouts — including the second round of doses coming to Santa Clara County health care workers who are working in the region's COVID-19 epicenter — in the future.

Though Moderna, the only pharmaceutical company allowed to distribute its vaccine for "emergency use" by the FDA, requires its vaccine to be administered in two doses, studies are showing that even a single dose proves quite efficacious.

Related: Orinda Nursing Home Now Has 49 COVID Cases; Laguna Honda Has 16 [April of 2020]

New Outbreak at Laguna Honda Infects 50 and Counting, Kills 3 Elderly Residents

Teachers, Police, and Food Service Workers Could Be Next to Get COVID Vaccine in California

Image: Courtesy of Getty Images via Maksim Tkachenko

If you've purchased Townsend Farms Organic Antioxidant Blend of frozen berries at Costco over the last few weeks, throw them out. People are getting sick from them. Very sick. See, a 62-year-old woman from East Contra Costa County was hospitalized with hep A last month. Though she has since recovered, it's a rare case. And you should be cautious.

SF Appeal has more:

Around 30 people in five states including California have become ill as a result of eating the berries, which are a frozen mix of cherries, blueberries, pomegranate seeds, raspberries and strawberries. Costco has removed the berries from its shelves since the outbreak and is alerting consumers who have bought them since February not to eat them.

Around 880 bags of the berries have been sold in Contra Costa County alone since February, Fowlie said.

While ABC 10 News notes:

The state health department warned consumers not to eat Townsend Farms Organic Antioxidant Blend frozen berries sold at Costco. The six California patients all ate the berries, according to CDPH.

"People who have bought this product should discard it if still found in their home," CDPH Director and State Health Officer Ron Chapman said. "Anyone who has consumed this specific product in the last 14 days should contact their doctor to discuss possible hepatitis A prevention and treatment options."

Symptoms of hepatitis A can include yellowing of the skin, diarrhea, fiver, chills, barfing, tummy aches, and "stomach pain in the upper right side of the belly."

[ABC 10]
[SF Appeal]

At the risk of sounding like an alarmist, SFist received word today about a possible virus outbreak in San Francisco. It's the Norovirus, a common cause of the stomach flu, which is "transmitted by faecally contaminated food or water [Ew! -- SFist] and by person-to-person contact."

Thankfully, the JavaOne conference team at Moscone Center was notified before any citizens. Check it:

The JavaOne conference team has been notified by the San Francisco Department of Public Health about an identified outbreak of a virus in the San Francisco area. Testing is still underway to identify the specific virus in question, but they believe it to be the Norovirus, a common cause of the "stomach flu", which can cause temporary flu-like symptoms for up to 48 hours. Part of the San Francisco area impacted includes the Moscone Center, the site of the JavaOne conference which is being held this week. We are working with the appropriate San Francisco Department of Public Health and Moscone representatives to mitigate the impact this will have on the conference and steps are being taken overnight to disinfect the facility. We have not received any indication that the show should end early, so will have the full schedule of events on Friday as planned. We hope to see you then.

For further information, as well as Frequently Asked Questions related to the Norovirus, please visit the San Francisco Department of Public Health website at http://sfcdcp.org/norovirus.cfm

Update: The Gate has more on the Moscone Center bug, which has led to violent diarrhea and vomiting. [insert your own joke here]

Micrograph of the noroviruses: Wikicommons