‘Very difficult situation.’ Southern KY nursing home ravaged by 33 coronavirus cases.
A nursing home in Adair County has emerged as a hot spot for COVID-19 cases at long-term care facilities in Kentucky with 29 positive cases among residents and four among employees.
One woman from the nursing home died April 6 as a result of the disease, and several have been hospitalized.
Officials announced the 30-plus cases early Friday. There could be more positive cases at the facility, Signature HealthCARE at Summit Manor, because some test results were not yet available, said Shawn Crabtree, director of the Lake Cumberland District Health Department.
Crabtree had announced six cases among residents Thursday, but the facility received additional test results later that day.
The outbreak at the facility in Columbia is one of the larger known totals around the state. A facility in Louisville reportedly had 29 cases and five deaths. Statewide, at least 18 nursing home residents had died from COVID-19 and 227 residents and staff had been infected as of Friday.
Friday afternoon, the Cumberland Valley District Health Department announced a surge of 34 new COVID-19 cases at Jackson Manor, a nursing home in Jackson County. Of those, 18 cases were residents and 16 were staff members.
The jump reflected a decision to test everyone at the facility in order to try to reduce the spread of the virus by people not showing symptoms and protect people who haven’t been exposed, the department said in a release.
There has been growing concern about the potential for coronavirus cases at nursing homes, where residents are at greater risk of complications and death because of their age and health condition.
Summit Manor is the only nursing home in Adair County, so many people in the community have ties to the facility through people staying there or working there.
At a news conference Friday morning, Mike Keltner, the county emergency manager, said his grandmother is in the facility.
“It makes it rough,” he said.
County Judge-Executive Gale B. Cowan said she has two relatives in the nursing home.
The spike in cases has created concern in the community, not just about the well-being of residents of the nursing home but about the potential for the virus to spread.
“Everybody’s scared, and I understand that,” Cowan said. “We’re all worried.”
A spokeswoman for Signature HealthCARE, which has more than 100 long-term care facilities in 10 states, said the company was deferring to local officials to release information.
Crabtree read a statement from the company at a news conference early Friday. Among other things, it said the company obtained coronavirus tests for all residents and employees.
There are 71 residents at the facility and about an equal number of staff members, he said.
Crabtree said Summit Manor had been following guidance on social distancing and protecting residents and staff before the outbreak.
The facility had stopped visitation about March 10, and Keltner, who also works with the ambulance service, said the nursing home screened ambulance workers coming into the facility.
“I know that they were doing the steps that they could there at the facility of what was recommended to them,” Keltner said.
‘You can spread it before you know you have it.’
The facility had its initial positive case last week.
Crabtree said the coronavirus may have been carried into the facility by an employee or health worker who didn’t feel sick.
“That’s the way this disease works,” he said. “You can spread it before you know you have it.”
With the spike in cases Thursday, local, district and state health officials held a conference call with Summit Manor and Signature HealthCARE officials to work out a response and make sure the facility would have enough staff to care for residents, Crabtree said.
Summit Manor began setting up a COVID-19 ward in one wing of the two-story building to isolate residents with the disease, using plastic barriers to separate it from the rest of the building, Crabtree said.
That unit was to be finished Friday.
The facility will have dedicated staff that work only in that area so they aren’t in contact with other residents, Crabtree said.
He said other long-term care facilities need to consider issues such as setting up dedicated coronavirus areas and making sure they have room for people coming back from hospitals.
Preparation is critical, Crabtree said.
“By the time somebody tests positive, you may already be in the middle of a very difficult situation,” he said.
Coronavirus claims life of Emma Rodgers, 83
The woman who died after contracting COVID-19 at the nursing home was Emma Rodgers, 83, who had been a homemaker, said her daughter, Brenda Neat.
Neat said she had been to see her mother twice the week before Summit Manor ended visitation, taking her some snacks and money to get her hair fixed.
“She was doing good the last time I was there,” Neat said.
The next week, Neat went on vacation. Before she got back to see her mother again, the nursing home stopped visitation to try to avoid exposure to the coronavirus.
Someone from Summit Manor called Neat one night last week to say her mother had a fever they couldn’t get to come down and was going to be transported to Cumberland County Hospital in Burkesville.
Rodgers developed pneumonia and died April 6. The test results showing her positive for COVID-19 came back a few hours earlier, Neat said.
Neat said she has no information on how Rodgers was exposed to coronavirus in the nursing home.
Rodgers had health problems, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so was more susceptible to complications from the coronavirus, her daughter said.
Still, COVID-19 ended her life earlier than she would have died otherwise, Neat said.
“It did take what time we would have had with her,” she said.
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 11:36 AM.
