Cal Poly students may return to campus in fall. Will gym still be used as COVID-19 care site?
San Luis Obispo County and its partners built an approximately $4.5 million care site at Cal Poly for coronavirus patients in case of hospital overflow — but the facility hasn’t been used yet and the initial contract with the school expired.
Now, the county is working with the San Luis Obispo university and California State University system to extend that contract by six months amid plans for Cal Poly to re-allow students on campus in a limited capacity, according to Cal Poly spokesperson Matt Lazier.
The initial contract for the alternate care site expired June 27, but as cases and case positivity rate rises locally, the care site will remain standing.
County public health department spokesperson Michelle Shoresman said the new contract will be set to expire December 31 — with the potential to be extended again.
The care site has been crucial for the county to begin reopening.
According to Shoresman, the alternate care site was one factor in San Luis Obispo County’s ability to reopen under California’s Resiliency Roadmap guidelines.
“For that reason, we have wanted to maintain that facility as long as we thought necessary and as long as Cal Poly would allow us to,” Shoresman wrote in an email to The Tribune.
Shoresman said a multitude of factors will contribute to county officials’ decision on whether they should extend the contract beyond December.
Why does SLO County have an alternate care site?
The alternate care site was built at the Cal Poly Recreation Center in early April in early April as a proactive response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was one of the first care sites in California created as a backup for local hospitals.
“(The alternate care site) really is an overflow facility that is really designed to take some of the pressure off of the general acute-care hospitals that might be feeling the impact of the surge,” Tenet Health CEO Mark Lisa said on a tour of the facility in April.
The care site was planned by private and public partners and paid for with county tax dollars that had been set aside in a contingency fund. Shoresman said there will be no additional costs in keeping the facility available, unless it is activated.
The care site was set up to open in phases, and has the capacity to care for 931 patients if needed.
Patients who are admitted into the care site will be primarily treated by Medical Reserve Corps volunteers, according to the county.
As of Tuesday, 300 reserve volunteers been trained in the facility, and another 300 were on stand-by, according to Shoresman.
San Luis Obispo County saw its highest number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, 14 patients, on Tuesday. Of those, six were being treated in intensive care units.
On Tuesday, 203 beds and 65 ventilators were available at the county’s four hospitals.
However, that number can change hourly depending on the influx of patients, according to Shoresman, because the county receives “point in time” data from local hospitals daily.
In addition to ventilators at local hospitals, Shoresman said, the county has 17 reserve ventilators and ordered 20 more.
When the county submitted the attestation to continue into Phase 2 of California’s reopening plan, it said there was a surge capacity for an additional 562 beds, not including the alternate care site.
According to state data presented at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s news briefing on Wednesday, California has 73,867 total hospital beds — 60% or 44,336 beds are in use, with 7% or 5,196 of those beds are currently occupied by COVID-19 patients.
While the hospitalization rate has remained relatively low in San Luis Obispo County, the number of new cases doubled in recent weeks.
County public health officer Dr. Penny Borenstein said as case numbers go up, the potential for hospitalized patients rises as well.
“I would not say that I am worried at this point, as the more critical metrics of hospitalizations and ventilator use and fatalities are really what we’re all trying to prevent,” Borenstein said in a Q&A with The Tribune. “But keeping an eye on those case numbers is very important because it may well be the leading edge of worse outcomes.”
Statewide, the hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have increased roughly 51% in the last two weeks, Newsom said at Wednesday’s briefing.
Will Cal Poly care site remain as students return to campus?
The Cal Poly Recreation Center, which houses the alternate care center, will revert back to a gym in some capacity as Cal Poly plans to welcome back students for some on-campus classes in September.
Dorm beds line the basketball court floor and racquetball courts have become changing rooms and storage spaces, but Lazier said the university may allow students to use sections of the Rec Center that haven’t been completely transformed.
“The university is also discussing with the county a plan for campus community members to be able to use portions of the Rec Center in the fall — provided that the ACS has not been used to treat any COVID-19 patients,” Lazier wrote Sunday in an email to The Tribune.
According to Shoresman, as long as the facility is not being used for medical purposes, the drafted contract will allow for students to potentially access pools and outdoor volleyball pits.
Most of the exercise rooms and studios on the second floor may also be open to students because those areas aren’t being used for the care site. The first-floor exercise room will closed off along with basketball and racquetball courts.
Lazier said the university is still discussing which areas of the Rec Center will be open for students.
“Maintaining the health and safety of our campus community members is a prime objective for the university, and we are implementing social distancing measures throughout campus to protect our students and employees,” Lazier wrote in an email Tuesday.
Cal Poly students pay general student fees that cover the cost of services including the health center, university union and Rec Center. However, Lazier said those fees will not be adjusted, even though the Rec Center won’t be open for full use, because they cover Cal Poly’s fixed and ongoing expenses.
“We hope that students understand that if they want the facilities and programs to be available to them now and in the future, they must, of course, be financially supported and maintained during the pandemic,” Lazier wrote.
Lazier said if the Rec Center is needed for patients, it would be fully closed to students and faculty.
The drafted contract details how the building would be closed back up in the event that the care site is needed, according to Shoresman.
Shoresman said that if the overflow facility is needed for patients, the county will bring in a contracted custodial service to clean the facility before patients are admitted.
