Supply, personnel stand in way of more coronavirus testing in Keys, health official says
The top health official in the Florida Keys wants to test more residents for the novel coronavirus, but said Wednesday that supply and personnel issues are standing in the way.
Bob Eadie, administrator of the Florida Department of Health in Monroe County, said during a conference call meeting with government officials and business leaders that he is planning to open community testing sites available to the public, especially in the Upper and Lower Keys, but they are proving difficult to start.
He said they are “fairly resource intensive” and that he needs significantly more supplies of testing gear and more people to administer them as well as work the sites.
“Those larger sites are going to take a while to put together,” he said.
Eadie said Monroe County is “in the queue” for new rapid tests that received emergency Food and Drug Administration authorization this week, but he does not have an estimated time of arrival for when they’ll get to the state, let alone the Keys.
“If we could get these in significant numbers, that would indeed make life easier for us,” he said.
As far as hospital capacity in the Keys’ three hospitals, Eadie said there are 20 intensive care unit rooms, and there are 100 rooms in the Keys “that could be turned into hospital rooms if necessary.”
As of Wednesday morning, according to the Department of Health, the Keys has 27 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus. Four of those are in people from out of state. Eight were acquired through community spread, 15 are travel-related cases and the remaining are under investigation, said health department spokeswoman Alison Kerr.
Baptist Health South Florida, which operates Mariners Hospital in the Upper Keys and Fishermen’s Community Hospital in the Middle Keys city of Marathon, had reported one in-house patient being treated for COVID-19, the virus caused by the novel coronavirus.
Lower Keys Medical Center in Key West is treating three patients for the virus, David Clay, chief executive officer said during Wednesday’s meeting.
Monroe County Mayor Heather Carruthers said Wednesday that she asked state officials this week for more ventilators and was told the state would double the county’s supply.
“We’ve gotten twice as many ventilators in the county in the last day,” Carruthers said in a Facebook Live post from her home. “We seem to have enough for the moment and we’ve doubled the supply and we will be getting more.”
Carruthers didn’t give a number of ventilators in the Keys, but a Lower Keys Medical Center spokeswoman said Wednesday that the hospital, “has 10 ICU beds with enough ventilators to accommodate those beds. In addition, the state is sending us five more ventilators.”
Lynn Corbett-Winn, the hospital’s director of marketing, said LKMC can convert other areas of the hospital into ICU beds and received a waiver from the state to convert beds in another campus, at the DePoo Hospital building, to medical beds.
“We are licensed for 167 beds between the two facilities,” Corbett-Winn said.
Corbett-Winn said the supply situation is “fluid,” and the hospital has no way to provide consistent numbers.
“For example, today we received in a shipment of 200 n95 masks,” she said. “Our staff has the personal protective equipment needed.”
Carruthers didn’t know how many COVID-19 tests were left in the Keys as of Wednesday.
“We don’t have the personnel or equipment to do widespread testing just because you think you need to get tested,” Carruthers said. “We’re essentially triaging those tests.”
She said the people who have been hospitalized likely have outside medical issues as well as COVID-19.
“They tend to have some underlying issue, whether it was caused by smoking or age or some other medical condition,” Carruthers said. “Our hospitals are saying they’re prepared for phase 1 and phase 2 surges and that they do have adequate supplies to do that.”
Carruthers urged residents to stay at home and only leave for essential services.
She said the county will issue an order restricting nonessential businesses from staying open, as directed by the governor this week.
“We’re working with our attorney and the municipalities,” she said. “Most of the businesses that remain open are still considered to be essential. We’re going to tighten that up a bit.”
Carruthers said marinas will stay open.
“Marinas here are going to remain open primarily because we have a fishing industry and we need food,” she said. “We’re going to let the marinas stay open.”
Key West closed to nonessential businesses on March 21.
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 1:19 PM with the headline "Supply, personnel stand in way of more coronavirus testing in Keys, health official says."
