'Outbreak: The First Response' (exclusive)
Yahoo Life and Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning broadcaster Soledad O'Brien have teamed to launch the exclusive digital premiere of her documentary Outbreak: The First Response. O'Brien and her film crew were at ground zero of the COVID-19 pandemic in Seattle earlier this year and they captured dramatic, heart-wrenching footage and personal stories showing the virus's toll on at-risk communities, notably the homeless population and the residents of the nursing home in Kirkland, Wash., that was devastated by the outbreak. The documentary explores the impact of the coronavirus on America’s most vulnerable from the outset. This is an important chronicle of the pandemic that not only continues to grip the country but will have catastrophic repercussions for years to come.
Video Transcript
- The purpose of this meeting is to get the paperwork done so that we can move your application forward for housing. What would you say was your last stable residence?
STEVIE HABEDANK: Over a year ago.
- Where have you lived since then?
STEVIE HABEDANK: I had gotten into my own apartment, which then lost because I lost my job. Then in the car.
We've got thick blankets. We've got a sleeping bag.
Tonight, I think it was, what-- yeah, 36 out. And, I mean, I was fairly warm back there. Were you warm, kiddo?
- Kind of.
[LAUGHS]
STEVIE HABEDANK: Kind of.
- Give me my shoes.
CASEY BALLARD: Merry Christmas.
- Merry Christmas.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Since I've been out of work, this has all been really hard-- trying to put gas in the car, trying to feed my daughter.
98% of people feel that homeless people are junkies and alcoholics, and I'm none of those. There's a lot of us out there that are just trying to get stable and on our feet so that we can live a normal life.
DOW CONSTANTINE: Seattle has a housing and homelessness crisis, and a lot of it really is tied up in the success we've had here. With the run-up in rents, folks have been squeezed out of housing and ended up on the streets.
STEVIE HABEDANK: I love you.
- Take it easy.
CASEY BALLARD: Have a good day at school.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Being homeless, it takes a toll on my heart, on my mind, on my soul. I feel like I'm failing my daughter. I feel like I'm failing as a mother. I'm not a good mom because we've lost everything.
KATHERINE KEMPF: What fruits do you want? Pineapple, oranges, apples?
I'm a medical student, single mom, two boys. And I am the daughter of Alan Kempf, who is a resident at Life Care Center of Kirkland.
This is Pop Pop before his stroke.
You know, I'm my father's guardian. He can't really talk for himself well.
This is a Christmas where Pop Pop had his Santa pajamas on. He loves Christmas. This is when Pop Pop-- when he was rehabbing the first time and he went to Life Care Center.
I just wasn't able to manage his care by myself while I finished up school. So he went to Life Care Center and became a resident there.
PATTY HAYES: Last fall, I went down to meet with our Medicaid state agency, the Health Care Authority. I said if we had a large outbreak, particularly with the homeless or nursing homes, I would not be ready to respond. If we would have been paying attention to public health over the last 20 years, we would have been in a lot better space to respond to this.
CARL QUINTANILLA: Seattle is the home of tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft. It's also the site of the first coronavirus deaths here in the United States.
- Health officials are especially concerned about a cluster of infections in Kirkland. That's a suburb of Seattle.
JENNY DURKAN: According to the World Health Organization, we are now in a global pandemic. I truly believe that this outbreak may be one of the most transformative and consequential events that we've had in this region and in this country.
JAY INSLEE: By mid-May, we could be looking at over 60,000 people infected if we do not act. There is a very successful effort that we can take to slow the spread of this disease, and that's to reduce the social interactions that are not necessary in our lives.
- Is the homeless population at risk?
JAY INSLEE: I'm sorry?
- Is the homeless population at risk, and if so, what's being done to help them?
JAY INSLEE: Yes. We are going to have a minimum of $100 million available to protect our vulnerable, including people in our long-term-care facilities and unsheltered people. I want to thank you. Be well. Wash your hands. Care for your family. Thank you.
PATTY HAYES: When the first case happened here in King County, everybody turned to us for advice and what we need in place in public health.
Public health is the silent force that's working for the health of the community. So we're often not seen, but we're a backstop to the safety net.
When I came to King County eight years ago, I worked in a division where the focus was the homeless. And being now the director for public health, that experience working with very vulnerable people has really helped me as we strategized in COVID-19.
The public-health efforts during this pandemic started with containment. So we wanted people to physical distance, but also for very vulnerable people, to stay at home. Public health cares about everybody, of course, but particularly those communities that need our help and support through this.
DOW CONSTANTINE: People who are homeless can't shelter in their own home. They can't isolate they have nowhere to go. We are all in this together, and we need to figure out how to help everyone, including those who are least able to help themselves.
CASEY BALLARD: I'm not really too worried about COVID-19. It's just more the effects it has on us getting housing. Living in the car is definitely stressful.
STEVIE HABEDANK: We put--
CASEY BALLARD: My stuff in the very back.
STEVIE HABEDANK: We just kind of have a little setup in here, and we just basically every night will pick out clothes for Alexa, get her changed, and it works. We've got all our food and stuff back here too, so.
We got hooked up with Cars to Housing. It's a program where they give you a safe place to park your car every night. It takes a little bit of stress off of you, minus the homeless stress.
TY CURLEY: How are you guys doing?
STEVIE HABEDANK: Good.
TY CURLEY: Yep. Coronavirus, huh?
Today, we just need to fill out a budget just to kind of see exactly what's coming out your pocket so that you can make some adjustments to save money.
So employment right now--
STEVIE HABEDANK: Well, I'm still-- I'm in training.
TY CURLEY: Right. But you are-- have you actually worked some hours at all?
STEVIE HABEDANK: Mm hmm.
TY CURLEY: OK.
STEVIE HABEDANK: I've been working at Lice Spies, which is a lice-removal service.
- We're just doing very quick visuals. If we don't see anything, then we proceed to doing our wet checks, right?
STEVIE HABEDANK: I absolutely love that job. It's not a lot of hours.
TY CURLEY: So how much do you get in food stamps?
STEVIE HABEDANK: $355.
TY CURLEY: How much are you spending in gas?
STEVIE HABEDANK: The end of last month, I was selling things because I went through about $100 worth of gas in a week.
TY CURLEY: So right now, our projected income would be $826.50, OK? If you're even considering trying to get an apartment, we're talking about, you know, anywhere from $1,500 to $1,700.
STEVIE HABEDANK: I'm fighting to get back to my daughter and I having our own home. You know, having that key to open that door that leads us moving forward instead of keep going backwards because it feels like we keep going backwards.
The tire decided to go completely down to the rim on me. It was $135 for them to come out. And I'm like, I don't have $135. I have, like, $30, you know? I had to take all of our stuff out of the trunk just to get to the spare tire because it's underneath.
Taking care of my family, taking care of housing, those are my major stressors. You know, coronavirus, until it directly affects me, I really want to stop hearing about it.
KATHERINE KEMPF: All right, so I want you to give it one, like, good, solid hit together. Ready? Like that. See that? Nice, solid hit with that amount of pressure. Bam. Look how easy it was for that to come apart?
We're pretty privileged because we have some tools to manage these types of things, and a lot of people don't. So I don't feel as afraid of COVID-19.
We basically have everything we need to survive off grid. We did buy the N95 masks, three of those. You know, we have what we need to stay safe, and I think we're good.
DOW CONSTANTINE: We are at a critical moment in this crisis. We're leaving the phase of COVID-19 outbreaks in concentrated areas of the county, and we're entering the phase of potentially rapid and widespread infection. Treat the next two weeks as a period of self-quarantine.
PATTY HAYES: We get the positive COVID tests in from the labs around 8:00 in the evening. Last night, I was notified that one of our disease investigators-- it's a nurse-- had been one of the positives. By the time I got to work this morning, there were 10 who are out ill today out of my team. It shows how vicious this virus is.
- The Life Care Center in Kirkland remains at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. So far, 22 people associated with the facility have died.
KATHERINE KEMPF: When I heard that this outbreak was in the facility, my first thought was oh [BLEEP].
Hey, Pops.
My dad's quarantined in there, but he hasn't tested positive. Can we take him out before he becomes positive? You have basically like a wildfire happening, and when the building's on fire, what do you do? You get out.
[PHONE RINGING]
- (ON PHONE) Hello. This is Seattle Public Schools. All school activities, child care, and transportation are cancelled in the district's response to COVID-19.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Well, we got the email last night. Her school has now closed until the end of next month. I have to figure out something to do during the day and, you know, make sure she's taken care of. It's not easy.
I do have a whole new respect for teachers, though, trying to get all these kids to do their work in class.
Do you have to answer these questions, or is it just--
- I don't know.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Well, let's look.
PATTY HAYES: There was a huge discussion around closure of schools. Because of the science that was developing and the unknowns around this virus, there's really intriguing questions about the role children play in this and the spread.
But also public health is deeply concerned about the impact it has for families to stay at home.
KATHERINE KEMPF: What's your song?
I mean, if all I had to do was stay home and homeschool, it would be great. But most of my days are really filled with phone calls and trying to get my dad what he needs, which he is not getting.
Is it possible for us to set up another call with him this afternoon?
- (ON PHONE) Let me put you down for a second so I can grab the schedule book, OK?
KATHERINE KEMPF: They weren't testing everybody at first because they didn't have enough tests. They called me back the next day and told me that he had tested positive.
When you have to sit in the background and have no ability to help your family when you have all the resources available, it is just infuriating to be completely helpless in that process.
PATTY HAYES: Would I have ever expected to be in the middle of a pandemic where the virus is so vicious to the elderly, disabled, and to have so many deaths here in Seattle? It's horrifying. So we're having to try and think of strategies to set up before we get so many people that the hospitals are overwhelmed like what we saw in Italy.
We are setting up what we're calling a recovery center, two large tents, one that will be where people will come as they're being tested and they're ill and then the other tent where folks who have COVID can stay.
- This will be the first one of these anybody's done in the nation. So we're breaking new ground, but we have to break the ground fast.
DOW CONSTANTINE: We have a timeline that we don't control. The virus is coming whether we like it or not, so we are going to do everything we have to do to be ready for that.
SHARON LEE: We are about to open 24 tiny houses for homeless men and women. Many of the shelters, people are sleeping too close together. If you're in a tiny house, you're automatically six feet apart.
- This was built by students at the Wood Tech Center. So it's basically move-in ready.
SHARON LEE: Wow.
Usually a village like this would take us, like, maybe three, four months. But because of COVID-19, we were asked by the city of Seattle to set this up, like, in a week.
My overall fear is we're not doing enough. Take a very simple issue like public restrooms. We don't have enough public restrooms or hygiene facilities for homeless people.
LEO FLOR: There might be a progressive strategy where we start with something just basic like, you know, temporary toilets, handwashing stations, but could sort of improve the sites sequentially.
SHARON LEE: Public health and the mayor are very much concerned about what's going to happen if homeless people catch the virus. But before the virus, you know, we still had the same crisis.
DOW CONSTANTINE: Congregate settings are a challenge. And whether it's a homeless shelter or a nursing home, that is a place where once an infection gets started, it can spread very rapidly and with tragic results, as we saw at the nursing home in Kirkland.
STEVE SEDLACEK: My dad took a fall and hit his head. He was in here for rehab. He was going to be in here a couple of weeks and then go back to where he lives. And at this point, told us on Monday that he tested positive for coronavirus. It just knocked the wind out of us. You sit down, and you can't even talk to anybody for a little while.
He's in that room there, and we go knock on the window and say hi through, and then they hold the phone up to him.
SCOTT SEDLACEK: Hey, dad. Happy Monday.
- How are you doing?
- (ON PHONE) Not bad.
STEVE SEDLACEK: There's been 29 people that are dead from this place, 29 as of last night.
SCOTT SEDLACEK: There should have been systems in place at Life Care that they could have prevented this from happening. And to have it happen where 80% of all of the patients here get it, something's broken in the system.
TIM KILLIAN: We have an update of test results. These are residents. 30 positive, 12 negative. We have 46 positive tests within our employees, 24 negatives, and 24 pending.
- When was it first noticed there was a respiratory infection going around?
TIM KILLIAN: Early in February, we started noticing some respiratory illnesses within some patients. The 26th was the first day we reported. We did put up signs earlier in February stating there is respiratory illness within the facility.
- The sign here that says respiratory outbreak was not there on the 22nd or the 27th.
TIM KILLIAN: Look, again, we're doing this briefing because we're hopeful that some element of our experience can inform the larger discussion. We're trying to be as transparent as we can.
KATHERINE KEMPF: Are you aware that you have nurses coming out of positive patients' rooms that are then moving-- that have been in there for weeks that are then moving into the kitchen to prepare food for the rest of this community?
TIM KILLIAN: That's not our understanding of how things are happening within our facility.
KATHERINE KEMPF: I worry is my dad going to get crappier care because they can't stand me because I'm such a thorn in their behind? But I'm not going to just go sit in a corner and cry about it, no. I'm going to fight.
My spot. Look at Pop Pop.
- Pop Pop.
Hey, Pops.
- Hey, Pop.
KATHERINE KEMPF: I see you got Steamboat Mickey.
ALAN KEMPF: Oh yeah.
KATHERINE KEMPF: My dad was basically forced to stay in a burning building and become COVID-19 positive, and thus far he's been lucky enough not to die of that.
- Pop, are you OK?
KATHERINE KEMPF: Can you breathe?
They told me, well, you can discharge him. To where? No facility will take a COVID-positive patient. The only place that will take them is the hospital when they progress to the point that they basically need to be put on a respirator.
- Well, Pop Pop, I love you.
Pop Pop, we love you. I can't wait until you come out.
KATHERINE KEMPF: You have a lot of laws that are supposed to be in place to protect people, but what is the accountability? If you're on the fringe, if you are a person without resources, you're screwed.
PATTY HAYES: Even though it's impossible for a person of privilege to understand somebody who's experiencing homelessness if you attempt to put yourself in their shoes, multiply that by a hundred. That's the additional stressors with COVID coming in.
STEVIE HABEDANK: The clinic is closed right now due to all the coronavirus stuff going on. You know, the income stopped, and it's-- honestly, it's just been one big struggle.
TY CURLEY: And so what we did was order a bunch of, like, the Clorox things too for you guys.
STEVIE HABEDANK: What is that?
TY CURLEY: Some socks as a present.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Oh, OK.
TY CURLEY: Yep, let you know I want your feet to be warm.
STEVIE HABEDANK: OK.
TY CURLEY: OK.
STEVIE HABEDANK: I'm going to cry.
TY CURLEY: We're good?
[LAUGHTER]
There's some light at the end of this tunnel. There may be a room that becomes available, and you guys will be able to go into the shelter. That is a possibility, so just, you know, be encouraged in that aspect.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Yeah.
TY CURLEY: OK.
STEVIE HABEDANK: I'm just-- I'm really stressed out, like really stressed out.
I'm scared.
Trying to maintain my family and get into housing and dealing with the COVID-19, it's-- it kind of feels like everything's just at a standstill.
PATTY HAYES: People don't know when life will begin again, and just that unknown brings tremendous stress on people.
KATHERINE KEMPF: My dad was admitted to the hospital for complications related to viral pneumonia.
- Pop Pop.
KATHERINE KEMPF: You can huge him. It's OK. He's officially testing negative.
Oh, finally after, like-- it's hard to hug you all bundled up burritoed.
Did they tell you that you have viral pneumonia from COVID-19? Are you breathing better? Do you feel like you can get air better?
Overall, there is a significant decline. His strength is very drained.
I'm having a hard time trusting the system right now. So much of this could have been avoided. Our oversight agencies do not have the funding and resources that they need to do their job, and we are really seeing that in this pandemic.
PATTY HAYES: That nursing home did not report to public health as is required when they started seeing an elevation in respiratory diseases. It's clear there was a breakdown in reporting. It's clear that the spread of COVID went faster than we realized.
So we have developed strike teams to go out on a very quick notice.
- The confirmed positive case is no longer at the site, but we will want to identify anybody that may have been in close contact.
PATTY HAYES: When we go into a nursing home if there's a positive patient, we want to test everybody that is symptomatic and all staff so that we're separating folks that are symptomatic and not symptomatic. When we go into a shelter, we will test everyone because of the high risk there.
DOW CONSTANTINE: Public health has performed magnificently. They've been burning the candle at both ends for over a month now. You can't go on like that forever, but when you see this wave of cases coming toward you, you really don't have the luxury of going back to an ordinary working schedule. You've got to keep pushing because you know people's lives depend on it.
PATTY HAYES: Ideally, everybody would be able to be tested. But right now, testing has been limited. So health-care workers are such a vulnerable group that we want to make sure that testing is available as much as possible for them.
- You OK
JENNIE SMITHER RYAN: I'm sorry. I'm a type 1 diabetic, so it's freaking me out.
Working on the floors, I see multiple people dying every day. It's really hard. I'm really sad. It's affecting families. It's affecting our community. It's affecting our health-care workers, the people that are there every single day putting on the PPE, taking off the PPE. Some of us are getting sick even with everything we're doing just because it's new. You know, no one has immunity to it.
CHERI MALENA: So this is going to be your room.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Oh wow.
CHERI MALENA: OK. Is this doable?
STEVIE HABEDANK: No, this works. This is bigger than a car.
[LAUGHTER]
Oh, that's really nice. Oh, you can stay back there.
[LAUGHTER]
This is awesome.
CHERI MALENA: So we have shared restrooms. Here's the door here for the showers.
What will be going on in here is they're putting in beds and things like that.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Kind of like a little clinic type thing?
CHERI MALENA: No. It's going to be a quarantine area--
STEVIE HABEDANK: OK.
CHERI MALENA: --in case people get sick.
STEVIE HABEDANK: OK.
CHERI MALENA: We have enough beds for three people. I think we've already spent $6,000 just for what we're able to do here.
They weren't able to get us some N95 masks. They didn't have any available, so literally this is what I have to protect myself if anything were to happen.
If someone gets sick here, I'm going to become a first responder, and that realization kind of hit me really hard. I mean, like, it got really real at that moment. Unless I get really sick and I can't come to work, I'm here, and I'm in 100%. We can't close our doors. We need to be here for the people that are here.
You're going to love it.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Are you going this way?
CHERI MALENA: These times are the most uncertain times that we have ever had in our lifetime. So I just want to recognize that if, you know, you're having struggles, it's completely understandable.
STEVIE HABEDANK: Honestly, I'm getting more scared. I feel like the shelter's less safe because there's people. There's, you know, more surfaces. You know, I've got asthma, and when it flares up, it's bad. I don't want anything to happen to me. [CRYING] I don't want to die. I don't want to get this stuff, you know? I just-- I don't want to leave him. I don't want to leave my daughter. I'm just scared.
CHERI MALENA: One of the things that impresses me about people who have experienced a lot of trauma is their resiliency. Are they stressed? Absolutely. Are they worried? Absolutely. But they're putting their best foot forward and showing up for their kids, and that's amazing to me.
STEVIE HABEDANK: All I want to do is take care of my little girl. That's all I want.
OK, knock it off.
- Is there a sticker on me?
STEVIE HABEDANK: Yeah.
She was excited to see the shelter, you know, excited to see the fact that we have somewhere to put our stuff and to sleep, and it makes her happy. So that's what I want.
PATTY HAYES: More and more of the modeling is showing that we may all be seeing a decrease in cases. Public health has come up with ways of keeping people safe, but those are not permanent. Those are meant for the COVID crisis.
DOW CONSTANTINE: Well, well, well. Social distancing my friends, please. Right now, we're looking still to help deintensify homeless shelters. We're trying to find facilities where we can get those people separated.
- Most of our patient population are actually from homeless shelters. And, for the most part, if they have any needs-- food, someone to talk to-- like, we're here. We let them know 24/7.
MELISSA ESCOTO: I cried a lot when I found out I was positive. It's really scary because you feel like you can't breathe, and you don't know if it's your last day or not.
PATTY HAYES: Folks who are experiencing homelessness, we still don't have enough housing for them. So when these folks are finished here and they're well, they might go back into the shelter again.
MELISSA ESCOTO: You know, it would be nice to have help when there's no COVID or just in general. Why are they stepping up only now? The cost of housing's high, and then when you have an addiction, nobody wants to rent to you. You know, where people are going to go? What are they going to do?
STEVIE HABEDANK: They're putting up shelters. They're trying to help finally. But when COVID-19 is all gone, it's probably all going to be gone.
SHARON LEE: The moment-- like the absolute moment the crisis is over, a lot of homeless people are going to be back on the street.
PATTY HAYES: There's a huge emotional toll around all of this. Public health is going to actually need to be boosted here. It's one of the reasons why I use my voice so very much. We all have to remember this is just the first wave. The virus is still there. There will be a resurgence.
[MUSIC PLAYING]