UK HealthCare says staff who traveled to Myrtle Beach don’t have to quarantine
In a warning last week, Kentucky’s highest public health official advised anyone who had recently traveled to Myrtle Beach — a COVID-19 hot spot — to quarantine for 14 days. Citing health care “staffing needs” in a Friday internal email, University of Kentucky HealthCare said it would allow staff to whom that recommendation applied to work, anyway.
“While the state health department recommends that recent travelers to Myrtle Beach self-quarantine, due to our staffing needs for clinical care, UK HealthCare is allowing staff to work,” Dr. Mark Newman, UK HealthCare executive vice president for health affairs, wrote in an email on Friday to staff. Clinical care applies to anyone who works directly with patients, including registered and advanced practice nurses and physicians.
Jennifer Rose, chief administrative officer for UK HealthCare, said Monday that UK HealthCare staff who’ve traveled to Myrtle Beach are allowed to self-quarantine for 14 days, but they must use “personal time” to do so.
Those who continue to work, Newman said, “must strictly adhere to our universal masking protocols and symptom screening.” Universal mask-wearing and screening one’s symptoms at beginning of each work shift has been a requirement at UK for more than a month. But universal testing of health care staff is not mandated, hospital officials said.
Last week, Gov. Andy Beshear and Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack warned Kentuckians that at least two virus clusters in the commonwealth were traced back to the popular summer destination in South Carolina. In one of these clusters, 12 people traveled together to Myrtle Beach on June 11. Within days of their return, at least nine in the group had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Late last week, South Carolina Public Health Director Joan Duwve said COVID-19 infection rates among groups who’ve visited her state’s beaches are “very high.”
So far, at least 21 positive cases in the commonwealth are linked to Myrtle Beach, a spokeswoman for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services said Monday. Citing privacy laws, Rose declined to say whether UK HealthCare employs anyone who caught COVID-19 while visiting the vacation hot spot. Kentucky has confirmed at least 15,347 cases since early March.
State leaders in Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia have also collectively linked dozens of cases across their states to Myrtle Beach. Other states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, are strongly urging South Carolinians who travel to their states to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival. Horry County, where the beach is located, had confirmed as of Tuesday at least 3,150 COVID-19 infections among its own residents — more than 2,300 of which have been confirmed since June 1.
Dr. Stack last week told Kentuckians who’ve recently traveled to Myrtle Beach, “please be aware that you have a good probability of having been exposed to the novel coronavirus.”
He asked that travelers avoid contact with “those who are vulnerable, such as the elderly and anyone with significant medical conditions, including diabetes, obesity and heart disease.”
This population accounts for a significant portion of patients treated at UK HealthCare.
Rose said the health system’s decision doesn’t conflict with the state’s advisory. “I disagree with your interpretation of the email,” she said. “We take advisories from the state very seriously. We’re going to take every precaution that we have to protect our staff and patient care.”
However, “it is an advisory,” not a mandate, she said, “and we have mandatory requirements each day” to maintain the health care system’s patient census, or the recommended staff-to-patient ratio. An influx of patients or a shortage of health care staff can imbalance the census, putting more burden on those working to meet the same demand with fewer staff.
Due to the “widespread nature” of the virus, and since the administration doesn’t track the whereabouts of staff outside of work, Rose said, “it’s not going to be possible to quarantine every person that travels.”
