Larkin Hospital chairman says 50% of Miami-Dade has or will get COVID19

The shit is getting real.

The threat of coronavirus and community spread of COVID19 is getting more dire every day as 58 more people in Miami-Dade tested positive by Sunday night for a total of 227 — and 50 of those cases were reported between the Florida Health Department’s morning and its evening briefing.

At least 37 Miami-Dade residents who tested positive by Saturday had no recent travel history and no known contact with another confirmed positive, the state agency reported for the first time.

And on Sunday, the president and chairman at Larkin Community Hospital sounded another alarm when he said that community spread would reach 50% of the population and practically begged for healthcare workers willing to work per diem shifts, donated hotel rooms and anyone who can help during what he predicts is going to be a crisis in our country worse than 9/11.

Dr. Jack Michel posted his plea on Facebook Sunday afternoon. Ladra has not added any drama. It’s all his. It’s all real:

“Based on the results of our drive-thru testing for the first day we are seeing a significant amount of virus infection. After reviewing their recent contacts we can independently confirm that we have concrete evidence of community spread in our area of COVID19 (this was confirmed by the DOH a couple of days ago, but this is additional, independent, confirmation from our own data that it is happening with the people we tested ourselves). What this means is that COVID19 is no longer a disease that can be traced to a source that came from outside our area, it is being actively spread to people with no travel history who acquired the disease here in our community.

Based on this and on the multitude of contacts each of these people (most had 10 or more contacts) we can conservatively assume that more than 50% of our local population will be infected with COVID19 in the next few weeks. We are going to be going through what New York is going through now (within 3 weeks) and eventually what Italy is going through (in one or two months) in terms of sickness and death.

We are at war with this virus, this is going to be significantly worst than 911 in several orders of magnitude and will be written about in history books. Our actions now can make a difference at least locally to save lives and also protect our staff.

Larkin Community Hospital is calling on all hotel owners to help us prepare for COVID19. We need hotel rooms near our South Miami Campus and Palm Springs Campus so that our staff can stay after they end their shifts when they start taking care of COVID19 patients in the next few weeks.

Please help our healthcare heroes so that they have piece of mind and don’t have to worry about exposing their loved ones.

We need staff to handle community calls for Drive-Thru testing, we are getting over 500 calls daily and need help with triaging and scheduling.

We need more staff, nurses, and other health professionals who are willing to work per Diem shifts. We would like to onboard you now and set you up in our system so that you are ready when we need you in the next few weeks.

We need volunteers who have a healthcare background who are interested in helping. All help is welcomed.

If you are an Ambulatory Surgical Center, we need your ventilators to increase our ICU capacity. We need your masks, gloves, and supplies. You will be repaid by FEMA for those. Please help us so we can take care of you and your friends and neighbors.

We are at war with this virus, let’s pull together and serve our community.

Please email me jmichel@larkinhospital.com

The testing was done at the non-profit hospital’s Palm Springs location in Hialeah starting on Friday and Michel, who has a laboratory at his disposal, said at a press conference Friday morning with Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez that he could get results in two days, and maybe shorten that to 24 hours.

They started Friday with first responders and health care workers only tested 56 that day. That may include a member of the Hialeah Police Departtment, an undercover narcotics officer, who tested positive.

Members of the public went Saturday and Sunday — they tested 100 and 131 respectively — but only people showing symptoms of COVID-19, complete an online application and pay $150. That was a surprise for some, while others may find it worth it to know right away if they are positive and are spreading it to their loved ones, since we are all basically staying home and sheltering in place with our families.

“Positives are coming in within 24 to 36 hours,” Michel told Ladra in an email. “Right now hospitals are exposing their patients because they are waiting seven days for results.”

Day 5 of COVID19 in Miami-Dade: more closures, masks and tests coming

Michel said Larkin continues to conduct tests at that site for the next seven days at least — or until test kits run out.

“We have 5,000 so we can go for at least the rest of the week,” Michel said. “We just put an order for 45,000, which should be arriving in one week in boxes of 1,000 at a time.”

The doctor explained that the swabs cannot be regular run-of-the-mill cotton swabs, which is why they are so hard to get. “Cotton deactivates the RNA (the genetic material of the virus) we use the sequence of to figure out if its COVID19, but we are already seeing two mutations, so it’s changing.”

Hialeah Councilwoman Monica Perez said she received several calls from residents who thought it was free. She’s glad the hospital is doing it for those who can pay, she just wished they had said it up front. She thought it was dishonest not to provide that information at the press conference. Many people are struggling and suddenly out of work.

Perez also confirmed that the Hialeah officer, whose name cannot be released because he works undercover, had tested positive. She said the three officers who work with him were tested Sunday so results are not back on them.

Perez also said the early results shared with her showed that about 12% of the first 200 tested had shown positive results and worries that the doctor’s alarming language could be intended to drum up more business. She also wants to know that Larkin is not getting reimbursement from FEMA or paid by insurance companies, too.

“I want to make sure nobody is double dipping,” Perez said.

With his history, she should triple check. Michel paid $15.4 million in fines years ago to settle claims that he swindled Medicare and Medicaid. And after that, the state allowed him to buy a Broward nursing home where, after he owned it, 12 elderly residents died after languishing for days with no air conditioning after Hurricane Irma.

“I don’t know if I can trust him,” Perez said.

Sunday, Michel defended the cost saying that it was the only way to get the fast results.

“We can’t afford to do them for free because the swab cost $12, plus the reagents, plus the equipment lease, plus the molecular tech who is a PhD, plus the pathologist, plus the people taking the samples at the tent. At $150 we barely cover costs,” he said.

“Then they told me I should be careful because I should not be prescribing the test because I should either examine the patient or ask them to get a prescription from their doctor,” Michel said. “But that would only expose me and other patients in the waiting area and makes no sense. Why can’t I give the patient a questionnaire? And if they have a fever, dry cough or shortness of breath, then I will sign off on the test, if not I won’t.

“This is a pandemic, it’s not business as usual. We need to stop it by testing more. So I guess they will have to take my medical license away because I won’t stop. It’s the right thing to do.”

Testing and more testing is the best way to save lives, Michel said.

“There is one key difference between us and the areas that controlled the outbreak, like Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea: mass testing and early quarantine, using the results of mass testing. Not just telling everyone to stay home and practice social distancing, but actually getting data and acting on it,” Michel said. “We are way behind on testing.”

The U.S. last week, according to this chart, was on the same trajectory as Italy.

In the U.S., with a population of 330 million, there had been approximately 103,000 people tested as of Saturday. That amounts to 313 per one million people. In South Korea, which has a population of 51 million, they tested 316,000 people or 6,148 per million.

“You can see the vast difference and the ominous implications,” Michel said, laying the blame squarely on the federal government.

“The problem is that the government is not really helping,” he told Ladra. “I was told last week that 500,000 swabs were coming from Italy. I thought they were going to give them to hospitals. When I followed up they said that they gave them to government hospitals and that we could purchase the rest from manufacturers. So they are not really making it easier.”

Is the U.S. government really stockpiling tests? Can you get on that Sen. Marco Rubio? Congresswomen Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell? Hello?

Tents have also been set up for a drive-thru testing site at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, but it was not operational as of Sunday. Probably for a lack of tests. And Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez also announced Sunday that there could be another drive-thru testing facility in partnership with Jackson Memorial Health Systems ready at Marlins Park in days. Ladra originally heard Tuesday from a source in Miami government but has since heard it could take a few days more. Grimenez was unspecific.

“We will have more details on Monday,” Gimenez said in a video posted to social media. “There will be a hotline to call to make appointments for this drive-through site. We are finalizing details on the opening date.”

Finalizing the details doesn’t sound like Tuesday. And in any case, the results at Jackson are taking many more days than the ones by Larkin for some reason.

At this point the government should be making the manufacture and distribution of tests and other equipment the only priority. Everybody is talking about relief packages and tax breaks when we need to be concentrating on containment first and treatment second. We need more tests.

As of Sunday, 5,476 people had died in Italy. That’s where Michel sees the U.S. in a couple of months.

Recent talk by Gov. Ron DeSantis about “isolation centers” — basically quarantine concentration camps for the positively infected — might actually discourage a lot of people from taking that test. Maybe that was the idea: To dampen the demand. Because we’ve seen the movies. Those stadiums and arenas used to keep the sick from the general population are bombed or locked up and gassed.

Next they’re going to want to tattoo us to show who tested positive and who tested negative.

Carlos Gimenez, Carlos Hernandez, coronavirus, COVID

Larkin Hospital chairman says 50% of Miami-Dade has or will get COVID19 added by Ladra on March 22, 2020
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