The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed shortcomings in California's preparedness for infrequent but catastrophic public health threats, which have caused serious health and financial consequences, according to the research jointly published Wednesday by the Labor Center of the University of California (UC Berkeley) and UC Berkeley School of Public Health.
The study argued that the appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE) can largely mitigate the spread of COVID-19 among healthcare workers, after referring to the studies of hospital workers in China, the Netherlands and the long-term care facilities in the U.S. state of Washington.
The study suggested that at least 35 percent of the cases were avoidable among the approximately 50,950 COVID-19 cases identified to date among essential workers in California, which equals 9 percent of all cases in the state.
"We conservatively estimate that at least 20,860 essential worker-related COVID-19 cases may have been avoidable if proper PPE had been available," the study said, adding that it is likely that dozens of deaths among essential workers could have been avoided with proper use of PPE.
As of Aug. 8, 2020, the California Department of Public Health reported 26,399 healthcare workers in the state testing positive for COVID-19. Among the 10,293 COVID-19 fatalities reported by the state, at least 135 were healthcare workers.
The research also unveiled that potential savings from averting high-priced emergency PPE contracts dwarf the budgetary cost of creating a PPE stockpile at normal non-pandemic prices.
Procuring an adequate PPE stockpile in advance at non-pandemic prices would cost only 17 percent of the projected amount needed to procure it at current pandemic-inflated prices, the research showed.
Maintaining the stockpile would be cheaper than real-time purchases even if it was not needed for another 35 years. "Even if we were fortunate enough to not need the stockpile for longer than that, it would be a highly financially prudent form of insurance," the study said.
The shortage of masks in California has been alleviated since China's BYD Company delivered hundreds of millions of face masks, ensuring the state to provide PPE to its front-line workforce during the ongoing global pandemic.
