Coronavirus outbreak at assisted living home
Shelby County Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter said Monday that local officials are addressing an outbreak of COVID-19 in an assisted living facility — but she wouldn’t say which one.
Any outbreak in an assisted living facility could kill many people, and the
health department has released minimal information to the public.
Following questions from The Commercial Appeal and other news outlets, the health department would say only that the facility is located in East Memphis.
Shelby County’s decision not to name the facility undergoing the outbreak was a sharp contrast to that taken by Gov. Bill Lee’s office, which has released extensive information about an outbreak at a nursing home in Gallatin, Tennessee, and evacuations of its residents. The Gallatin city government has also released information about the outbreak.
The Shelby County health department said they were told by the facility’s executive director that residents, families, staff members and others were notified of the outbreak.
Altogether, there are six known cases of COVID-19 at the facility, including five residents and one employee, according to the health department.
At a Monday news conference, Haushalter said one resident of this facility had tested positive at some point in the past. “We knew this facility had one case a few weeks ago,” she said. Once they learned of a second case about two weeks ago, they did “significant testing,” she said. A total of 24 have been tested, according to the health department.
Nursing homes and similar facilities are among the deadliest settings for coronavirus. Many residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities are older than 60 and have serious health problems, and both are factors that put them at high risk for the new respiratory virus.
Haushalter said she wanted the chance to work with the facility first before releasing the information to the public.
“This is what you would expect to see,” Haushalter said. “As we continue to have spread, you expect you’d continue to have spread into vulnerable populations.”
The county recently reported its first fatality from COVID-19, but Haushalter said the fatality was not connected to the affected assisted living facility.
The state of Tennessee has seen a dramatic and fatal outbreak at the Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing in Gallatin, Tennessee, northeast of Nashville.
The National Guard helped test all residents and staff. As of Monday morning, 74 residents of the nursing home tested positive, as had 33 staff members. Two residents of the nursing home have died.
Sandi Klink is executive director of the Memphis Center for Independent Living, an organization that helps people with disabilities. She said she isn’t necessarily worried about the government not releasing the name of the facility.
She said doing so might increase discrimination against anyone who works at the facility, even if that person isn’t infected.
But she did express a concern echoed by many advocates for people with disabilities: that if the coronavirus leads to shortages of beds and equipment, people who are elderly or disabled might not receive the best treatment.
“I would like those people (in the assisted living facility) to get all the treatment that anybody would get if they weren’t living in one of those places,” she said.
“In fact I think they should be prioritized because most of them have bright and shiny minds and especially our elders have so much to share with us younger folks that it would not only be a shame to lose them – but it would be against the law.”
She said the Americans with Disabilities Act and other civil rights laws protect against discrimination. “Why should a reminder be needed that my life matters too?”
If you or a loved one are affected by a coronavirus outbreak in a nursing home or assisted living facility, please contact reporter Katherine Burgess at 901-2970160.