For seven months, Shady Lane Nursing Home in Gloucester County was a happy exception.
In a state where thousands of seniors have died in long-term care facilities, during the coronavirus epidemic, residents of Shady Lane largely survived. A small, government-run, nursing home in East Greenwich, it closed its doors to visitors and outside contractors, set up a “strong” testing program, and did not see a single resident test positive on the dangerous days of spring, its administrator said.
Despite precautions, the deadly virus was still able to enter the 60-bed facility. And with disastrous consequences.
The first positive tests came in early October, when an asymmetrical employee is believed to have brought the disease into the building. Five days later, Shady Lane publicly noted his first death. By the end of last month, at least 31 residents and 21 employees had been infected with COVID-19 – and according to the state, 13 residents had died from its complications.
At the time of the outbreak, Shady Lane held 48 people, federal data shows, meaning that about two out of every three residents were ill – and more than a quarter lost their lives. That’s when New Jersey’s state-of-the-art nursing homes are battling a second wave of uncommon coronaviruses that wreaked havoc in March and April, leaving thousands of vulnerable seniors alive.
Over the past three months, coronavirus infection has jumped among long-term care residents and employees in New Jersey, NJ Advance Media analysis of state data shows. So death occurs, another crisis sign of an epidemic resurgence that erupted in the spring by underparted nursing homes, causing some of the highest mortality rates in the country.
And state officials and pathologists warn that the spread of coronavirus is likely to worsen with the onset of winter.
In September, 659 residents and employees tested positive for the virus during New Jersey’s long-term care facilities, the review found. October In October, the number of new positive tests reached 1,137, an increase of 73%. It rose more dramatically in November, while 2,264. Residents and staff tested positive – five times more than just two months ago.
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Death, meanwhile, more than doubled. There were 45 deaths in long-term care facilities in September, 65 in October and 111 in November. It had three facilities that killed more than 10 people, including Shady Lane who said he took action by sanitizing its occupants, using appropriate protective devices and following social distance rules.
“Despite all these measures, Shadian Lane Nursing Home experienced its first positive COVID results on Oct. 3,” the home’s administrator, Michelle Bellor, said in a statement. “It unfortunately causes subsequent cases and deaths at our facility.”
Two infection control inspections were conducted by the Department of Health at Shady Lane, operated by the Gloucester County Improvement Authority Authority, and no defective practice was found, Baylor said.
“At the moment, at our convenience, we have zero positive CIVD-19 cases,” Baylor said, adding that the number of infections is two places higher than the state figure. “A total of 54 cases have been registered against us and the residents will remain and the staff has fully recovered. A staff member continues to recover at home. “
The Department of Health is not easy for people to track how coronavirus is spread in state nursing homes. While the department regularly maintains a list of outbreak features, those lists do not show whether a given feature has been found to increase the case from the previous list, and the department does not provide archived versions for comparison on its COVID-19 information dashboard.
To further complicate the picture, since July the state has regularly completed its list by removing any coronavirus-free facility from 28 days, which poses another hurdle in assessing the breadth of disease reach.
From September to Wednesday, the department released a list of 28 outbreaks, with the number of active outbreak facilities skyrocketing at one point, rising to 359 over the weekend, more than doubling from 156 on September 2.
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To calculate the growth in new cases, NJ Advance Media compared everyone from that list whenever a new death and infection of a new resident or staff entered a facility. Which has recently presented a complete picture of the spread in nursing homes, support-accommodation centers and other facilities for seniors who have struggled to keep the virus out of their midst.
In total, staff members account for 57% of new cases and 43% of residents. In three months, 221 seaweed-19 deaths were reported in 83 facilities, three of which were staffed.
The Department of Health has not answered written questions for this article. The government’s Phil Murphy administration has expressed concern over the rising number of cases in nursing homes and on Monday, it announced beefed-up measures that require long-term care workers to be tested for coronavirus every other day on a temporary basis. Visitors, as well as residents who frequently leave the facility, also now test entry.
Unveiling the initiative, Murphy cited the boom expected to follow the Thanksgiving holiday in New Jersey, saying the state fears an increase in “employees or returning residents who have moved in with their families.”
“Making sure the virus is kept away from our long-term care facilities is a top concern,” Murphy said.
The nursing home industry acknowledged that the case is ballooning, but said the facilities are better designed than ever before, and have stored personal protective devices and established protocols to test residents and staff and isolate the sick. . The industry says already limited visitors were greatly reducing the disease.
The interim president and chief executive of the New Jersey Health Care Association, Dr. “Clearly, there has been an increase in community outreach and a clear increase in cases of nursing homes,” Stuart Shapiro said. “The latter usually follows the former.”
Shapiro said nursing homes are working to mitigate the effects of the second wave, while plans for a national level of vaccine distribution will have to wait until earlier this month. On Tuesday, an advisory committee from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that the first vaccines go to health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, saying they are a top priority given their vulnerabilities.
Shapiro attributed the increase in related cases, but said he could not say whether it would increase this winter.
“The goal is to reduce illness and death to the maximum extent possible,” Shapiro said. “I will not predict the turn of the turn at this time.”
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Theresa Adelstana, senior vice president of the New Jersey H Hospital Hospital Association, said the growing infection shows the risks of asymptomatic spread of the disease, as it is brought to nursing homes by strangers who are sick. Term care facility He said the state’s new testing efforts will hopefully get more cases of this type and help in the temptation to spread more.
“These facilities are parts of the communities where they are located,” Edelstein said. “So what has happened in the community is also happening in the facility.”
The first wave of the epidemic hit nursing homes hard as it shattered them, the state and the country, flooding New Jersey hospitals and morgues. Nearly 45% of New Jersey’s confirmed and probable coronavirus deaths are attributed to long-term care facilities, and the number of nursing homes per capita in the state ranks consistently or second in the United States.
Despite nine months of experience with the disease so far, nursing homes continue to see it infiltrate their buildings.
In October, state regulators barely took steps to prevent a Somerset County facility from accepting new admissions there after widespread outrage. The Somerset Woods Rehabilitation and Nursing Center was ordered to hire outside experts in infection control and nursing home administration to ensure adequate protection for facility residents and staff.
State figures show that from September to October there were 11 deaths reported in the 148-bed facility in Franklin Township – at least two previous deaths – with 77 residents and 15 staff testing positive for the virus. According to federal tracking – about 115 home facilities have been depleted throughout the summer – indicating that two-thirds of residents have contracted the disease.
Steven Schwimmer, manager of Somerset Woods, did not respond to requests for comment. In a message posted on the home’s website on November 27, he described it as “a very difficult time for all of us” and said the facility “returns to normal as soon as possible.”
“There were zero residents and zero staff who tested positive for COVID-19 this past week,” Schwimmer wrote. “Our current covid count is maintained at zero. We continue to follow our guidelines in isolating any resident who develops symptoms for COVID-19 or tests positive for the virus. We remain vigilant to fight and isolate the virus to the best of our abilities. ”
In South Jersey, Cumberland Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation reported 15 deaths in the past month, plus another on the state’s outbreak list on Friday. In total, 71 residents and 39 employees tested positive for the disease, a facility in Bridgeton that federal records show 157 residents lived in the week of the outbreak.
“State surveyors have gone to our facility twice during the outbreak, and confirmed during both visits that the facility follows and adheres to all protocols,” Cumberland Manor administrator Steve Broadt said in a statement. , Said in a statement. “Although we are deeply saddened by the impact of this virus, we are committed to doing our best to limit its impact.”
Broadt said the facility is working with state and local health officials and is informing residents and their families of the development.
He looks forward to the future, when there is “a vaccine that can truly protect our residents and employees from this deadly virus.”
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