COVID-19 taking devastating toll on nursing homes
Growing calls for investigations into nursing home deaths; Bryan Llenas reports.
An outbreak of the novel coronavirus at a nursing home in Kansas has claimed at least two lives, county and nursing home officials said this week.
In total, 15 people at the facility, including residents and staff, have tested positive for COVID-19. More specifically, 11 staff members have tested positive, while four residents have also been infected.
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The outbreak was reported at Avita Assisted Living and Memory Care at Rolling Hills in Wichita, according to a news release from Sedgwick County.
“Avita’s top priority is the quality of care and safety of residents and staff,” said executive director Vicky Gooch in a statement. “All positive staff are not to report to work until they have quarantined for two weeks, show no symptoms for 72 hours, and complete a negative COVID-19 test. Nine of the eleven staff with positive results were asymptomatic.”
“These limitations have been difficult for everyone involved. Staff is ensuring that while in-person visits are not allowed, residents can still connect with loved ones through scheduled window visits, phone calls, text chat, or video communication,” she added.
An outbreak of the novel coronavirus at a nursing home in Kansas has claimed at least two lives, county and nursing home officials said this week. (iStock)
The cases occurred despite the fact that the nursing home followed all Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and stayed up to date with numerous ongoing changes, according to the release.
“This includes visitor restriction (except in compassionate care situations), screening staff members before each shift, proper hand hygiene, staff and residents wearing face coverings and residents being quarantined to their rooms,” officials added.
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Nursing home populations are at higher risk for infection and death from the coronavirus, experts have said. Individuals with underlying health conditions are especially susceptible to infection, and the likelihood of developing such conditions increases with age. Additionally, the virus spreads more easily in confined areas, and the concentration of residents helps the virus spread even faster.
The news comes after a report from June found that nearly half of all deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. have occurred at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
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Fox News’s Peter Aitken contributed to this report.
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