State to open COVID-only nursing facilities to slow spread

As nursing home COVID cases have started to surge again, the state will open a fourth long-term recovery center next month.

Dubbed the COVID Recovery Facilities, the centers are meant to help contain nursing home outbreaks by taking in residents who have been infected. The centers also accept COVID patients who have been discharged from hospitals and residents of assisted living facilities who need long-term care.

Torrington Health & Rehabilitation Center, which was reopened as a COVID recovery center during the spring, will begin accepting patients in December. The 120-bed facility had recently closed as the need declined.

There are a total of 334 available beds at the four facilities, which also include Westfield Specialty Care Center in Meriden, Quinnipiac Valley Center in Wallingford and Riverside Health and Rehabilitation Center in East Hartford.

As of Monday, a total of about 95 patients were at the three open facilities.

“These are nursing homes or parts of nursing homes designated specifically for residents who need care and still in the ‘infectious periods’ of COVID,” Deidre Gifford, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, said during a Tuesday conference call.

Each center has a different capacity. For instance, the CRF at Quinnipiac Valley Center, which is housed inside an existing nursing facility, has 34 beds, while Riverside has 90. There are an average of 20 patients at Quinnipiac at any given time, said Lori Mayer, a spokeswoman for Quinnipiac Valley Center.

“Quinnipiac Valley Center assists hospitals and nursing homes who are inundated with COVID-19 patients,” Mayer said in a statement released Tuesday. “The center is responding to the Connecticut Department of Health and partner hospital needs for a skilled nursing facility for COVID-19 positive patients.”

These centers were originally set up in the spring, during the first wave of COVID, as a way to free up beds in hospitals and to keep COVID patients in nursing homes from infecting other residents.

“CRF are another tool in our tool kit if you will,” said Adelita Orefice, a senior advisor to the DPH commissioner. “That’s about alleviating stress on facilities.”

Some centers, like the one at Quinnipiac Valley Center, have remained open since the spring, while others have recently reopened due to increased need.

According to the latest Connecticut nursing home COVID data, there were 61 facilities with cases among staff, 17 with infected residents and 44 with cases among both between Nov. 11 and Nov. 17.

During that span, there were a total of 306 new COVID cases reported in Connecticut nursing homes. Another 262 infections were reported among nursing home staff. At assisted living facilities, 59 new cases and three deaths were reported among residents in the same time.

Though it isn’t required for COVID-positive residents to move out of their nursing home and into a recovery facility, it is recommended in many cases, said Vivian Leung, coordinator of the DPH’s Healthcare Associated Infections Program.

“The point of CRFs is to prevent people who are infectious from being in a home where they can infect other people,” she said.