Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Inside Broward’s virus hot spot
Atria Willow Wood an example of what can happen when precautions ignored
Max Barker eats alone these days, secluded in his apartment to keep him safe from the coronavirus that has been killing his neighbors.
He used to eat in the lively dining hall at Atria Willow Wood, the assistedliving facility where he’s lived for two years, but not since three residents of the facility died last week.
At least 11 residents were infected as of Tuesday. Four tests are still pending, according to an email Atria’s regional vice president, Yunia Gonzalez, sent to residents’ family members Tuesday night. Seven infected residents have been
hospitalized, said Mike Gentry, the company’s senior vice president of care.
Willow Wood has become Broward County’s coronavirus hot spot, the site of all three of the county’s deaths and, in the governor’s opinion, a notorious example of what happens when you ignore precautions.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said Willow Wood allowed the virus to spread by failing to protect its residents, some of the most vulnerable in the hardest-hit region of the state.
“What the investigation has found out is that construction workers, staff and cooks who were ill were not screened,” the governor said Friday at a news conference in Tallahassee. “They were allowed to go work their jobs and mix with the residents unimpeded.”
A statement from the company said that DeSantis’ remarks were false, that the assisted-living facility did all it could to protect residents from the coronavirus and that several agencies had reviewed its actions “each step of the way.”
Either way, life has changed immensely for the people who live there.
Life is lonelier nowadays. Residents are holed up in their rooms or apartments, where they’re lucky if they have a partner to eat with. For those who live alone, their only social interaction at meals is when staffers clad in protective clothing and face masks bring them their food in plastic containers, three times a day. What once was social is now sterile.
Residents get their temperatures taken three times a day, and staff members must wear masks at all times, according to residents. Designated staff members are caring for residents who are in isolation or awaiting test results, and they wear full personal protective equipment. Employees’ temperatures are taken at the start of their shift.
The three deaths hurled the seniors into loneliness. They still can’t see their families unless it’s through a screen or perhaps a window.
‘I can’t complain’
For the past week, John Eadie has been in lockdown. He’s 85 and has been living at the facility for more than a year.
Before the virus arrived, “I reached a point where I was starting to stagger, losing my balance,” said Eadie, a widowed father of three. “I moved here because my children were worried I might fall. Where I am now, I get my meals. They clean my place once a week.”
And now, they keep him secluded.
“It’s been one week now,” he said. “In the middle of the day they locked us down, Monday a week ago. It’s a nuisance. But that’s the way it is now. We’re all worried. Everybody. This is a scary virus. No one is immune from it.”
Three times a day, he gets a knock on the door from a staffer bringing him meals in a plastic container.
“They do a nice job,” he said. “I can’t complain.”
Life is a bit more lonely, though. His two daughters live out of state and call him to check on him. His son lives nearby but can’t come for visits like he normally does due to the lockdown.
“We’re not supposed to leave our apartment,” Eadie said. “They haven’t locked us in, but they don’t want us walking around. They’ve made that clear.”
Another new thing: All the staff wear masks and walk around in biohazard suits.
“My cleaning lady came in today and I laughed at her,” Eadie said. “She told me they all have to wear these suits now. They don’t want us coming in contact with anyone. And I understand that. Even the newspaper boy who delivers my paper would come around to all the apartments with the papers. Now they won’t let him in. So he brings the papers and the staff has to bring it to us.”
Eadie says he doesn’t expect the lockdown to end anytime soon.
“Nobody knows,” he said. “We’ve been on permanent lockdown for just a week now. I’m 85. I’ve never experienced anything like this.
“When I was 7, they started a thing like World War II. And everyone was asking how long it was going to last. We ended up being in it for four years.”
A new enemy
Max Barker says it’s been frustrating being confined to his apartment on the independent living side of the facility. He’s 95 and hates being “cooped up” and unable to bowl or play golf.
But being at the same place where three residents have died from the disease still doesn’t compare to life during wartime.
“I’ve been through worse things than this in my life,” Barker said. “It was no picnic going through World War II.”
Barker served in the Army then, beginning in 1943, and recalls “jumping in foxholes and ducking bullets.”
Now he’s facing a new enemy — a highly contagious virus that poses the greatest threat to anyone over age 65.
Barker says he is trying to take a laid-back attitude to the crisis, but from his firstfloor apartment he can’t help but notice a stream of ambulances carry sick people away. Barker said he has counted 10 so far.
He’s not surprised by the governor’s statement that sick construction workers, cooks and other staff at the facility had been allowed to mingle with the residents.
His worries bother him enough that he texts his daughter about them.
Trinity Ward, 47, normally doesn’t worry too much about her dad, who happens to be in excellent health for his age.
He walks on his own. He lives on his own. When she’s in the car with him, he drives the seven miles between his apartment at Atria Willow Wood and her house in Fort Lauderdale.
But since his neighbors started dying of the virus, he hasn’t felt safe at Atria, Ward said. She’s considerably less at ease than Barker or Eadie. Last week, she said her dad was texting her concerned about what he was seeing from his firstfloor apartment.
“He texts me: ‘I don’t feel safe here,’ and ‘I’m scared’,” she said.
Even though the facility canceled large events, they didn’t encourage or enforce social distancing early enough to stop the spread of the virus, she said.
The dining room was open until the first resident died, 77-year-old Richard Curren, on March 16. Up until then, lunch was a particularly social affair for Barker and others who sat in the dining room with their buddies during meals each day, where the virus could have been spreading among them, Ward said.
That’s when staff started screening the residents for symptoms and quarantining them, Ward said. She said they barged into her dad’s apartment at 3 a.m. to make sure he was responsive and to take his temperature. That was jarring because staff usually doesn’t enter his apartment unannounced since he’s on the independent side of the facility, she said.
“It’s been chaos ever since,” Ward said. “Like, why hasn’t my dad been able to get a test?”
Ward said she’s been pressing the higher ups at Atria, asking all about how they intend to prevent an outbreak.
“How many people have to die for them to start testing everyone there? What is the magical number?” she asked. “My dad is not sick, but physically he’s old. If he gets a cough and a fever, or any symptoms, by the time they test him, he’ll be dead.”
Atria says testing is controlled and managed by the state, but the company continues “to advocate for, and support our community through the process,” the statement said.
But healthcare workers are concerned, too.
Lisa Gordon, a private caregiver, has patients on both the independent and assisted-living sides of the facility. She’s had contact not only with Curren and his wife, Sheila, but also another resident who passed away from the virus. She wears a masks and gloves every day, but doesn’t have any major symptoms, so it’s hard to get a test, she said.
Atria started screening visitors after Curren died, she said. Every day when she comes into work, she answers a few questions for the screening and gets her temperature taken. But she said she doesn’t think the screening is extensive enough.
“To me the screening seems to be a joke,” Gordon said. “How can an employee or anybody that enters that building that has been working there say they haven’t been exposed to anybody that tested positive? Every single one of us has crossed paths with the people that have passed away.”
Gordon said she thinks Atria is trying everything possible to protect their residents, but the situation has spiraled out of their hands. She said the governor’s comments about the construction workers didn’t surprise her, because of a major renovation project that brought hundreds of construction workers onto the premises.
A contractor who gives physical therapy at the facility said she, too, was exposed to Curren and had trouble getting tested. She said the facility started screening visitors, including health care professionals, the day after Curren died. She asked to remain anonymous out of fear for her job.
Gentry, the company’s senior vice president of care, said Willow Wood implemented precautions March 4 to protect residents, including screening visitors and prohibiting anyone from working in the community if they were unable to pass the screening. The procedures adhered to guidelines from state and local officials, including screening visitors and prohibiting anyone from working in the community if they were unable to pass the screening, he said.
When Broward’s health department notified Willow Wood staff of the confirmed case in the community on March 16, they escalated those protocols, Gentry said. That’s when, he said, staff started delivering meals to residents in their apartments.
Major risk
Erik Curren, whose father was the first to die from the virus in Broward County, said he hopes his father’s death will show people that they need to take the virus seriously. Even if they’re not vulnerable to the disease, they might spread it to others who are, such as his father.
“It’s very serious,” he said. “It’s a major area with a lot of retired folks, some of whom have health conditions, and it’s a very vulnerable set of people who need special protection.”
He urged even those who are not at risk of the disease to follow CDC guidelines of social distancing and washing hands.
The last time he talked to his dad on the phone was three or four weeks ago, he said. His father seemed stable recently, which is why his death came as such a shock.
“When I talked to him on our last phone call, he was very upbeat. He was happier and more energetic than he had been in years. He was so excited about moving into that facility — it was like he had a new lease on life.”