16 TEST POSITIVE FOR VIRUS AT CENTER FOR DISABLED
Residents at state-run facility in Chesapeake have not yet shown symptoms, officials say
CHESAPEAKE — Five people with intellectual disabilities and 11 staff members who care for them have contracted the coronavirus at a state-run facility in Chesapeake.
Meghan McGuire, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, said officials are monitoring the recent COVID-19 outbreak at Southeastern Virginia Training Center. The residents who tested positive do not have symptoms yet, she said, but families have been notified of the situation.
“We cannot reveal any further details about the individuals or staff members, but they are all in our thoughts,” McGuire said in an email to The Virginian-Pilot. “We hope for full recoveries as quickly as possible.”
The outbreak is one of six confirmed by the Virginia Department of Health in Chesapeake and nearly 150 statewide, most of which have occurred at long-term care facilities, where viruses can be hard to contain.
The facility, which houses 74 residents, is made up of 15 cottages on a 22-acre campus in the Greenbrier area. It will be the only so-called “training center” remaining open in Virginia at the end of this year.
Canterbury Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Henrico County, where an outbreak has led to at least 49 residents dying, has had the worst outbreak in the state, according to a report from The Richmond Times-Dispatch this week. Canterbury has one of the highest death tolls in the country among long-term care facilites.
But the Chesapeake facility has had problems with infectious diseases. A SEVTC resident was the first death in the state from the swine flu in June 2009. Three others got the illness, also known as H1N1, while four residents were simultaneously infected with seasonal flu. All of those sick residents, including the 34-yearold woman who died, lived in the same cottage.
Early in the pandemic, the facility suspected two residents might have the coronavirus and tested them as a precaution. Their results came back negative, but staff were concerned then about safety. At the time, McGuire said the separate cottages that make up the campus have the “secondary effect of helping
to contain disease.”
All five residents of the now-affected home are receiving care from “familiar staff,” McGuire said. Not all of the employees who routinely work there tested positive, and others are filling in for the staff who are quarantined because they tested positive.
But the situation has alarmed employees, leading to an online petition seeking hazard pay for the risk of coming into contact with “bodily fluids and germs” on the job.
The state behavioral health department started an incentive pay plan Friday for the employees to address staffing shortages, though officials provided no other details on how it works.
The department has implemented infection control measures to reduce the chance of viruses spreading. As of March 14, all of the state-run facilities restricted visitors and started other protocols, such as taking temperatures of staff to screen them for fevers.
The training center has personal protective gear, such as face masks, McGuire
said. But because of national supply constraints, it is following guidance from the Virginia Department of Health to conserve its resources.
The department has ordered extra cloth masks, but in the meantime, “nondirect care” staff have been told they can wear their own masks for protection.
“All staff caring for patients with COVID-19 or symptoms consistent with COVID-19 are provided full personal protective equipment,” she said.
The department has implemented infection control measures to reduce the chance of viruses spreading. As of March 14, all of the state-run facilities restricted visitors and started other protocols, such as taking temperatures of staff to screen them for fevers.