Staff members who worked while sick at multiple long-term care facilities contributed to the spread of COVID-19 among vulnerable elderly people in the Seattle area, US federal health officials said on Wednesday.
At least 30 COVID-19 deaths have been linked to Life Care Center in Kirkland.
A report on Wednesday from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided the most detailed account to date of what drove the outbreak.
Photo: AFP
Public health authorities who surveyed long-term care facilities in the area found facilities did not have enough personal protective equipment or other items, such as alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
They also said nursing homes in the area are vulnerable because staff members worked with symptoms, worked in more than one facility, and sometimes did not know about or follow recommendations about protecting their eyes or being careful while in close contact with ill patients.
Nursing home officials were also slow to think that symptoms might be caused by COVID-19 and faced problems from limited testing ability, the report said.
Life Care officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings. Long into the outbreak, facility officials said they did not have enough tests for residents and that staff had gone untested.
Several family members and friends who visited Life Care before the outbreak said that they did not notice any unusual precautions, and none said they were asked about their health, or if they had visited China or any other countries struck by the virus.
They said visitors came in as they always did, sometimes without signing in. Staffers had only recently begun wearing masks. Moreover, organized events went on as planned, including a Feb. 26 Mardi Gras party, when residents and visitors packed into a common room, passed plates of sausage, rice and king cake, and sang as a band played When the Saints Go Marching In.
“We were all eating, drinking, singing and clapping to the music,” said Pat McCauley, who was there visiting a friend. “In hindsight, it was a real germ-fest.”
About 57 percent of the patients at the nursing home were hospitalized after getting infected. Of those, more than one in four died. No staff members died.
“The findings in this report suggest that once COVID-19 has been introduced into a long-term care facility, it has the potential to result in high attack rates among residents, staff members and visitors,” the report says. “In the context of rapidly escalating COVID-19 outbreaks in much of the United States, it is critical that long-term care facilities implement active measures to prevent introduction of COVID-19.”
Infected staff members included those working in physical therapy, occupational therapy and nursing and nursing assistants.
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