City Prepares For Potential Coronavirus Cases

City staff from a half-dozen departments have teamed up with state, hospital, and university partners to put together a comprehensive coronavirus emergency response plan.

While New Haven has yet to see any local incidents of the deadly Chinese virus, the city Health Department is monitoring a handful of people who recently traveled to China and have voluntarily submitted themselves for government surveillance.

City Office of Emergency Management Director Rick Fontana gave that update Wednesday afternoon as part of a ​“tabletop exercise” held in the city’s Emergency Operations Center in the basement of 200 Orange St.

Over two dozen fellow city staffers and representatives from Yale University, Yale New Haven Hospital, and American Medical Response crowded into the bunker-like command center to talk in detail about how prepared the city is as the country as a whole braces to be hit by the potential pandemic.

Several screens positioned behind the speaking podium showed key numbers gathered by Johns Hopkins University researchers as related to the worldwide coronavirus, or COVID-19, outbreak to date: 81,191 confirmed cases (over 78,000 of which have been in mainland China); 2,768 fatalities; and 30,248 total recoveries.

“We still have not gotten a case,” Mayor Justin Elicker (pictured) said. He said the city started thinking through its coronavirus response plan several weeks ago when a student attending a Yale Model Union conference who had recently traveled to China came down with influenza. 

“It’s highly possible that we may get a case in New Haven,” Elicker continued. ​“The fact that we have a lot of warning and are able to work together … puts us in a good position to be ready should we get a case.”

“We do have people here that we’re monitoring,” Fontana added.

City Health Director Maritza Bond said that the city is monitoring just a ​“handful” of Yale-affiliated individuals who recently traveled to China and then alerted the university that they are up for voluntary monitoring.

Bond said that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes that coronavirus symptoms, such as a sudden shortness of breath or high fever, may take upwards of 14 days to appear.

“This is something that’s hugely important,” Fontana said. ​“We really need to make sure that we minimize the risk” to both emergency responder personnel and to all New Haveners at risk of exposure.

The Emergency Response Workflow

Fontana then called on each member of the emergency response team to talk through their role and responsibilities in case someone in New Haven comes down with coronavirus.

The city may find out through a 9 – 1‑1 call, with someone who has recently traveled to China and has experienced a sudden shortness of breath or high fever. Or the city might hear from the state Department of Public Health that a ​“person of interest” has entered the city; that is, someone whom the federal government has identified as having traveled from an area with a coronavirus outbreak to a regional airport.

Public Safety Communications Deputy Director Jeff Patton said that, once his department receives a 9 – 1‑1 call from someone who might have coronavirus, the fire dispatcher will send out a fire engine with an emergency unit and will reach out to American Medical Response (AMR) to provide an Advanced Life Support (ALS) paramedic ambulance with an isolation unit.

The police dispatcher will also send out two patrol units and one patrol supervisor to conduct crowd control. The communications supervisor will update the shift commander at the NHPD by phone. And Public Safety Communications personnel will send out a notification through the city’s Everbridge notification system to all relevant city emergency response teams.

“This all should take place in approximately 90 to 120 seconds,” he said. ​“It’s faster to execute than it is for me to tell you how to do it.”

Fire Assistant Chief of Operations Mark Vendetto (pictured) said that his department will make sure they have phone contact with the potential coronavirus victim to conduct a medical assessment.

All of the firefighter emergency responders on scene will don Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) outside the home.

“We’re going to look to work with AMR to transport the patient. If not, we will do the transport.”

The exposed emergency responders will then undergo a ​“decon procedure” to break down their gear at the scene. And they’ll have undergo a debrief to talk through what Fire Chief Alston said would almost certainly be an ​“emotional” and ​“stressful” time.

An AMR representative said that the private ambulance service would send a special ambulance equipped with a biocell. They would make contact with the fire department and Yale New Haven Hospital’s York Street campus.

Lt. Mark O’Neill said that police would provide traffic support for AMR and the fire department by setting up traffic points and calling in whatever additional resources they would need to handle the car and pedestrian traffic at the scene.

YNHH Manager of Disaster Preparedness April Alfano said that the Emergency Department would call the infectious prevention unit and the state health department to let them know about the potential coronavirus patient.

Health care providers would then do coronavirus testing, send out specimens to hospital and federal labs, and then send the patient to an intensive care unit or to a Med Surg unit.

All the while, Bond said, the city’s Health Department, and in particular the city’s epidemiologist, will be closely monitoring any residents who volunteer for surveillance because they believe they might have been exposed to coronavirus, as well as anyone the federal and state governments let the city know might have been exposed.

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full exercise.