Dear Commissioned Corps Officers,
We would like to share a great news story with you. A copy of the story is listed below.
Feds Send Medical ‘Strike Team’ to Washington State Nursing Home Hit by Coronavirus
The team was deployed to a Washington state nursing home that has emerged as the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak.
By Steve Sternberg, U.S. News and World Reports
March 6, 2020, at 4:29 p.m.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT has dispatched a “strike team” of U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers to the Life Care Center in Kirkland, the Washington state nursing The team is made up of 28 physicians, physicians’ assistants, nurses, technicians and other medical care personnel and has already begun caring for elderly members of the nursing home that has been hard hit by the COVID-19 virus, Adm. Brett P. Giroir, M.D., the head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, tells U.S. News.
“We have responded to a request from the state of Washington to dispatch a team to support the care of individuals in Life Care Center in Kirkland,” says Giroir, deputy incident commander of the COVID-19 response. “They are on the ground now, doing what we do best, taking care of people.”
The U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, made up of 6,100 uniformed officers, is one of eight U.S. uniformed services and the only one devoted to health and safety.
The Seattle strike team was dispatched within 24 hours of the request, Giroir says. To date, the Public Health Service has dispatched more than 700 commissioned officers to serve in a variety of roles in the COVID-19 response, including caring for more than 50 critically ill Americans and a number of Japanese who were evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
By Feb. 20, researchers say, 619 of the ship’s 3,700 passengers and crew tested positive for the virus, an infection rate of about 17%.
“Our teams were deployed to assist in the assessment of the cruise ship and evacuate and expatriate Americans from the ship to the United States,” Giroir says.
Leading the effort was Rear Adm. Richard Childs, M.D., clinical director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, in Bethesda, Maryland, who returned to the United States today to begin setting up a war room, Public Health Service spokeswoman Cmdr. Kate.Migliaccio-Grabill says.
Many of the patients were so ill that mechanical ventilation wasn’t sufficient. They needed extreme critical care with a device called ECMO, which essentially bypasses ailing, nonfunctioning lungs to oxygenate the blood.
“It is useful when your lungs are so sick there is no alternative,” Giroir says, allowing them to rest and heal.
On Feb. 15, Giroir dispatched a team to Japan to work with the U.S. Embassy, Japan’s ministry of health and the drug firm Gilead Sciences to provide compassionate access to the company’s experimental Ebola drug called remdesivir, which is one of many of antivirals that have been tested against COVID-19.
“We don’t know if it makes a difference, but we know that those Americans have the best possible chance to recover when the cavalry arrives,” Giroir says.
Laboratory tests suggest the drug shows promise, health officials say.
“There’s only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy. And that’s remdesivir.” says Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser and international leader of the World Health Organization’s joint mission to China, at a Feb. 24 press conference.
The service has begun preparing contingency plans to step in if U.S. hospitals are overwhelmed by patients. He noted that Wuhan doubled its patient capacity in a month because so many COVID-19 patients needed prolonged hospitalization.
“If this thing gets worse, as we anticipate that it could, systems may be overwhelmed,” Giroir says. “We’re preparing for that mission.”
The plan includes 10 to 12 coronavirus clinical strike teams, made up of groups of physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses and behavioral health providers, Giroir says. “They could take care of 300 to 500 patients each. We know that people with this disease need oxygen and IV fluids for prolonged periods of time. We could take care of them even in a makeshift facility like a gym or convention center.”
When they are not responding to health emergencies, Public Health Service officers work in a slew of federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. There are no enlisted personnel, and all officers wear uniforms that closely resemble those of the Navy.
The Public Health Service has responded to virtually every major public health emergency in the U.S. and abroad, including Ebola, Zika virus, SARS and other emerging infectious diseases. Indeed, members of the team that responded to the Life Care Center outbreak previously responded to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Kate Migliaccio Grabill, MPH
CDR, USPHS
Commissioned Corps Communications