UC San Diego's campus is shown in this undated aerial photo.(Courtesy of UCSD)
The University of California San Diego and other public colleges across the state may open their campus housing to hospital patients as the coronavirus pandemic tests the capacity of the healthcare system.
San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said officials are working with UCSD to possibly create an “alternate care setting” in an empty dormitory at the La Jolla campus. The facility would be staffed with doctors and nurses, he said.
Why this matters
San Diego County has more than 7,000 hospital beds, and typically half of them are occupied. As county healthcare officials prepare for a surge in COVID-19 cases, their own model projects local hospitals could run out of beds by mid-April.
“This would be for individuals presently in the hospital who are too sick to go home but don’t need to stay in the hospital,” Fletcher said at a Friday news conference. “If we can create new rooms, we can transfer those folks there, which is freeing up an existing room.”
Other universities may assist, too. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he’s working with leaders of the UC and California State University systems to “identify appropriate dormitories” to help with a looming hospital bed shortage.
San Diego State University has not disclosed any plans. In a campus-wide email last week, the school said officials “will communicate should a decision related to any SDSU facility occur.”
A malfunction that occurred in the San Diego VA hospital’s isolation rooms may have exposed patients and staff in the ICU to the novel coronavirus.
There are roughly 7,000 hospital beds in the county. A model that county health officials are using projects that local hospitals could exceed their capacity as early as mid-April. If citizens follow social distancing guidelines and stay home, the county may not run out of beds until mid-May.
Andrew Gordon, a spokesman with the UC system, told inewsource that officials have begun to inventory available space “and determine the feasibility of repurposing some housing facilities for temporary emergency use.” Students who remain on campus will not be commingled with those being sheltered temporarily, he said.
“These are trying times for our students and all Californians, and UC is well positioned to do its part to help the State through our patient care and cutting-edge research, and potentially through the temporary repurposing of space,” Gordon said in an email. “As we navigate this period of crisis and uncertainty, health and safety are our highest priorities and we will continue to do everything we can to respond with compassion and care.”
Neither county nor UCSD officials have named which dorm would be used for the alternate care center. Roughly 4,200 students live in the university’s residence halls and about 7,300 stay in apartment-style housing.
Universities across the state largely sit empty after classes were shifted online and students moved out of campus housing. UCSD, which urged students to move out of campus residences two weeks ago, said in a notice Tuesday that “a considerable number of undergraduate students” already have canceled their housing contracts.
A university spokeswoman said some students still are living on campus in “isolation housing.” She declined to share additional information “due to student privacy concerns.”
SDSU had more than 6,000 students living on campus before the pandemic. About 200 students were allowed to remain in campus housing after the university shifted to online classes.
San Diego State University’s campus is shown on March 27, 2020.(Zoë Meyers/inewsource)
Toni Molle, a CSU system spokeswoman, told inewsource that its campuses are evaluating the availability of space, “and we continue to be engaged with the governor’s office on the issue.” No additional details are available, she said.
In a March 18 letter to President Donald Trump, Newsom said state officials project roughly 56% of California’s population — or 25.5 million people — will contract COVID-19 within an eight-week period.
Dr. Nick Yphantides, the county’s chief medical officer, said Monday that San Diego is “probably nowhere near” the peak in its COVID-19 cases.
The county’s model, which assumes 20% of the region’s cases would require hospitalization, doesn’t take into account additional beds available at San Diego’s federal medical centers. It also doesn’t consider efforts by hospitals to cancel elective surgeries and increase capacity, which in California could help increase capacity by about 40%, said Dr. Eric McDonald, the county’s medical director of epidemiology and immunization services.
But the model also doesn’t consider any possible surges in local cases and assumes all hospital beds are available for COVID-19 patients, McDonald said. The county’s historical bed occupancy is 50%, he said.
McDonald said the model shows staying at home and social distancing can “buy time” as officials work to add beds.
“We need to keep with it,” he said.
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Gender Identity
Gender Identity
Gender Identity
Women
80%
Women
82%
Women
75%
Men
20%
Men
18%
Men
25%
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation
Straight
87%
Straight
82%
Straight
100%
LGBTQ-identifying
7%
LGBTQ-identifying
7%
Not specified
7%
Not specified
7%
Speak a language beyond English at home
33%
Speak a language beyond English at home
18%
Speak a language beyond English at home
75%
Race/Ethnicity
Race/Ethnicity
Race/Ethnicity
White
67%
White
73%
White
50%
Hispanic or Latinx
20%
Two or more races
18%
Hispanic or Latinx
50%
Two or more races
13%
Hispanic or Latinx
9%
Age
Age
Age
20-29
40%
20-29
45%
20-29
25%
30-39
47%
30-39
45%
30-39
50%
60 or older
13%
60 or older
9%
60 or older
25%
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Lorie Hearn is the chief executive officer, editor and founder of inewsource. She founded inewsource in the summer of 2009, following a successful reporting and editing career in newspapers. She retired from The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been a reporter, Metro Editor and finally the senior editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. In addition to department oversight, Hearn personally managed a four-person watchdog team, composed of two data specialists and two investigative reporters. Hearn was a Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University in 1994-95. She focused on juvenile justice and drug control policy, a natural course to follow her years as a courts and legal affairs reporter at the San Diego Union and then the Union-Tribune.
Hearn became Metro Editor in 1999 and oversaw regional and city news coverage, which included the city of San Diego’s financial debacle and near bankruptcy. Reporters and editors on Metro during her tenure were part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that exposed Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and led to his imprisonment.
Hearn began her journalism career as a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, a small daily outside of Philadelphia, shortly after graduating from the University of Delaware. During the decades following, she moved through countless beats at five newspapers on both coasts.
High-profile coverage included the historic state Supreme Court election in 1986, when three sitting justices were ousted from the bench, and the 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris. That gas chamber execution was the first time the death penalty was carried out in California in 25 years.
In her nine years as Metro Editor at the Union-Tribune, Hearn made watchdog reporting a priority. Her reporters produced award-winning investigations covering large and small local governments. The depth and breadth of their public service work was most evident in coverage of the wildfires of 2003 and then 2007, when more than half a million people were evacuated from their homes.
Laura Wingard is the managing editor at inewsource. She has been an editor in San Diego since 2002, working at The San Diego Union-Tribune, KPBS and now inewsource. At the Union-Tribune, she served in a variety of roles including as enterprise editor, government editor, public safety and legal affairs editor, and metro editor. She directed the newspaper’s award-winning coverage of the October 2007 wildfires and the 2010 disappearance of Poway teenager Chelsea King. She also oversaw reporting on San Diego’s pension crisis.
For two years, Wingard was news and digital editor at KPBS, overseeing a team of four multimedia reporters and two web producers. She also was the KPBS liaison with inewsource and collaborated with inewsource chief executive officer and editor Lorie Hearn on investigative work by both news organizations.
Wingard also worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the city editor and as an award-winning reporter covering the environment and politics. She also was the assistant managing editor for metro at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside. She earned her bachelor’s degree at California State University, Fullerton, with a double major in communications/journalism and political science.
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In 2017, Racino was selected by the Institute for Nonprofit News as one of 10 “Emerging Leaders” in U.S. nonprofit journalism.
Racino has worked as a reporter and database analyst for News21; as a photographer, videographer and reporter for the Columbia Missourian; as a project coordinator for the National Freedom of Information Coalition and as a videographer and editor for Verizon Fios1 TV in New York. He received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2012.
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Jennifer Bowman is an investigative reporter at inewsource, covering Imperial County and the South Bay. She used to cover education for inewsource. She’s happy to be back in her hometown after stints at daily newspapers in Michigan and North Carolina.
At the Asheville Citizen Times,...
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