Judge orders officials to talk in dispute over Costa Mesa coronavirus quarantine

Daily Pilot

Feb. 24, 2020 6:15 PM PT

A federal judge Monday ordered federal, state and local officials to meet by the end of the week to sort out information about the potential use of the Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa as a coronavirus quarantine site, which the city is fighting.

A joint report on their meeting is due by 5 p.m. Friday, according to U.S. Dist. Judge Josephine Staton. She set another court hearing for March 2 at 2 p.m. to discuss the conclusions.

“We’re pleased with the outcome,” Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley said of Staton’s decision. “We still have more work to do.”

Monday’s hearing at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana followed a whirlwind weekend for Costa Mesa and the federal and state agencies the city named as defendants when it successfully requested a temporary restraining order from Staton on Friday to block possible plans to send to Fairview people who have tested positive for the coronavirus known as COVID-19.

Federal defendants named in the city’s filing included the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense, Air Force and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The city also named as defendants the state of California and its Office of Emergency Services and Department of General Services, and the Fairview Developmental Center, which is state-owned.

City officials said they were notified Thursday evening that people infected with the coronavirus could be arriving in Costa Mesa over the weekend from Travis Air Force Base, a quarantine site in Northern California. Local officials said the news blindsided them and sparked worries about public health.

The City Council held an emergency closed session Friday afternoon in which it voted unanimously to file for the temporary restraining order to prevent the transport “until an adequate site survey has been conducted, the designated site has been determined suitable for this purpose, all necessary safeguards and precautions have been put in place, and the public and local government have been informed of all efforts to mitigate risk of transmission of the disease.”

Staton granted the order that night, pending Monday’s court hearing.

In responses filed in court Sunday, the federal and state defendants slammed the city for interfering in their handling of a public health crisis.

“Fear of COVID-19 does not justify such unprecedented intrusion into federal quarantine decisions by the specialized agencies responsible for this area,” the federal response said.

The state’s response called the potential for transmission of the virus to the community around Fairview negligible and said patients would not be able to interact with the community from the secured site.

The COVID-19 virus, first reported in Wuhan, China, has spread to three dozen countries, including the United States, and has resulted in more than 80,000 confirmed cases and more than 2,600 deaths.

“While we have nothing but compassion for those who are suffering from this virus, the health and welfare of our community is our top priority,” Foley said Monday. “Bringing those infected into this densely populated area is simply the wrong approach.”

Statements from the California Health and Human Services Agency over the weekend said Fairview is “one of the possible locations under consideration.” The agency has considered several other facilities, including the Sonoma Developmental Center, Army National Guard Camp Roberts and closed youth correctional facilities, according to a statement in court documents by the agency’s secretary, Mark Ghaly.

“There is an urgent need to house evacuees who test positive for COVID-19. Using such a site would be better for public health than the alternatives, which consist of using hospitals or home isolation,” the federal defendants’ court filing said. “Home isolation does not provide the same level of monitoring and care.”

At the hearing Monday, Staton tried to drill into questions Costa Mesa and Orange County officials posed to their state and federal counterparts about the specifics of sending people to Fairview. The center, at 2501 Harbor Blvd., opened in 1959 and once housed 2,700 adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It is now nearly empty.

Of the patients who remain at Travis Air Force Base and hospitals in Northern California, about 10 “units” of people who have tested positive for coronavirus but do not have symptoms could be isolated at Fairview, according to Daniel Beck, an attorney for the federal government. A unit could be an individual or a family, Beck said.

Costa Mesa’s emergency services manager, Jason Dempsey, said in court documents that state and county officials told him Thursday evening that Fairview would be cleaned up by Sunday in order to place 30 to 50 infected people.

Sixty-seven California residents, including some from Orange County, are among the Americans evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan and quarantined at Travis Air Force Base, federal agencies said in their filing Sunday. They have tested negative for the virus but are under quarantine because they could still fall ill, according to the court documents.

The defendants pressed the judge for a hearing date before March 2, emphasizing that the longer the wait, the more likely people who have tested positive and are staying at hospitals in Northern California could strain the healthcare system there.

Staton said she didn’t think a few extra days would cause “an untenable situation” in Solano County, around Travis Air Force Base.

Orange County Health Care Agency Director Richard Sanchez said state officials “have been repeatedly unresponsive” to his agency’s request for detailed information on the possibility of coronavirus patients being sent to Fairview.

Foley said Friday that “our biggest concern is that we’re being left out of the discussion in terms of what the plan is. We don’t know how many people. We don’t know the level of illness. We don’t know how long. We don’t know what the treatment regime will be.”

The federal agencies’ response Sunday said, “There is no requirement that a federal agency consult with and incorporate local government any time the agency makes decisions; indeed, such a requirement would cripple the federal government.”