3 more die from outbreak at home
Hogan: Staffer without symptoms may have introduced virus
A total of five residents have died from a large outbreak of the coronavirus at a Carroll County nursing home, county officials said Tuesday.
The third, fourth and
fifth residents of Pleasant View Nursing Home in Mount Airy to die from the virus were two men in their 70s and a woman in her 60s, each with underlying conditions, the Carroll County Health Department said.
Two others — a man in his 80s and another in his 90s — had previously been pronounced dead.
Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday night in a C-SPAN interview that a staff member without symptoms may have introduced the virus to the nursing home, where it “went like wildfire.”
Atotal of 77 people connected to Pleasant View, which had 95 residents at the start of the outbreak, have tested positive, officials have said. Eighteen residents tested negative.
The first positive cases at the facility were reported Friday. Officials said Tuesday that staff were being tested as well.
Nursing homes are the focus of significant concern as health officials seek to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which has infected at least 1,650 Marylanders and killed 22.
On Tuesday, officials reported that five residents at a Northeast Baltimore nursing home, FutureCare’s Cold Spring facility in Lauraville, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
The site provides skilled nursing and dialysis services, city health officials said. A FutureCare spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.
On Monday, officials at the Residences at Vantage Point in Columbia said a resident of the retirement community who recently died at a hospital had tested positive for COVID-19.
Also Monday, officials reported that a resident at Erickson Living’s Oak Crest retirement community in Parkville has tested positive for the virus.
Wider outbreaks have occurred in nursing homes in states including Washington, New Jersey, Arkansas and Illinois.
City health officials said they are working with FutureCare to trace contact the residents had with others in the facility and ensuring staff have proper protective equipment and enough space to isolate the infected residents.
FutureCare operates 15 facilities in Maryland, most of them in Baltimore. The company provides care for people on dialysis and those with lung illnesses that require ventilators, according to its website.
Carroll County officials said they were taking steps to control infection and treat the Pleasant View residents who have tested positive for the coronavirus. Some have been moved to hospitals. Carroll Hospital, for example, said it was caring for 12 patients and one employee from Pleasant View.
Rebecca Travels, the nursing home’s administrator, has lamented the lack of testing availability in the lead-up to the outbreak at her facility.
“As an industry, as an administrator, one of the frustrating things, I think, for all of us at that time, was the lack of availability, the lack of access to testing,” Travels said. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else."