The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
COVID split couple married 75 years, but test was wrong
James and Catherine Amatuli have been married for more than 75 years.
Since they were each in their 20s, they’ve lived together and have taken care of one another. Even recently, after James, who is 100, moved to the Vernon Manor Health Care Center in Vernon, they would not be separated for long. Catherine, 95, followed him several months later. The spouses have shared a room in the facility since the beginning of the year.
But the situation changed in June when Catherine Amatuli tested positive for the coronavirus and was moved to a COVID-19 unit at Vernon Manor’s sister site, Manchester Manor. The results, however, turned out to be wrong.
Catherine Amatuli was among five at Vernon Manor, and 90 statewide, who received false-positive results between June 15 and July 17.
Catherine Amatuli’s son said he had been concerned about his parents being in a nursing home during the pandemic, because of “their age and their frailty.”
Yet, the Amatuli family felt exceedingly lucky, according to the couple’s son, Robert Amatuli.
As the pandemic progressed and devastated many nursing homes, Vernon Manor remained CO
VID-19-free, save for three asymptomatic staff members, who, according to facility administrators, did not further spread the disease.
But during routine testing for all of the Vernon Manor residents, a process that has now become common in nursing homes to help prevent the spread of the disease, Catherine Amatuli and four others received positive results last month and were ushered to another facility to be quarantined with infected patients.
“To take a person that’s in a non-infected facility, take them out and put them in an infected facility under observation, but still in a higher-risk environment, where the staff there are co-mingling with infected people, was a little disconcerting,” Robert Amatuli said.
The false positives have raised concerns over the effectiveness of testing and whether those residents who were falsely deemed positive may have been put in danger when they were quarantined with carriers of the virus.
The false positives included one hospital inpatient, 63 nursing home patients, five assisted/independent living residents
and 21 staff members.
Of the 18 facilities affected, one was an acute care hospital, 14 were nursing homes, one was an assisted/independent living facility and two were combination nursing home and assisted living facilities, according to the state Department of Public Health.
“We hope to have more answers next week when test results are finalized,” said Av Harris, director of communications and government relations at the state Department of Public Health. “We will not likely have answers to all questions; we are unable to determine causality, for example. With a prolonged incubation period (14 days), it is difficult to determine exactly when someone is exposed, however our epidemiologists are working with each facility to conduct risk assessments to isolate anyone who might be infectious from anyone who might be naïve to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”
Paul Liistro, a managing partner at Manchester Manor and Vernon Manor health care centers, said he and his staff were surprised when they got the five positive results.
Liistro noted that residents at Vernon Manor had been COVID-19-free and the three asymptomatic staff members who did test positive for the virus had been successfully quarantined.
None of those staff members had been in contact with the five who tested positive, Liistro said.
“When we got these five positives, we didn’t say, ‘Oh, we had a good run,’ ” Liistro said. “Our first reaction was, ‘This is impossible.’ ”
The five patients were transferred to a COVID-19 unit at Manchester Manor. Over the course of roughly two weeks, three additional tests were administered to each of the patients. None produced a positive result. Through contact tracing within the facility, administrators were able to determine that no other contact with the virus was likely.
Liistro reported the results to the state DPH on July 16, in an attempt to correct the record, but didn’t hear back until Sunday when the facility was notified of the flawed testing data.
The state is continuing to work with affected facilities to assess risk. And while Liistro acknowledged the potential stress caused by the false positives on family members and residents, in general, he said he hasn’t lost confidence in the state’s testing system.
“We have been relying on the state lab and they’ve been reliable and quick,” Liistro said. “They do efficient work and we can kind of count on them. There were 90 false positives. I
don’t know how many tests were done in that 32-day period. My guess is tens-ofthousands. Things like this happen and it’s all part of the process.”
For Catherine Amatuli, the false positive meant 14 days in the COVID-19 unit in Manchester and an additional 14 days in quarantine when she returned to the Vernon facility. During the ordeal, Robert Amatuli said administrators were transparent, offering weekly “town hall” conferences with family members to offer whatever additional information was available.
After 28 days away from her husband and repeatedly testing negative for the virus, Catherine Amatuli was returned to their shared room in Vernon on July 17. During that nearly monthlong period, Robert Amatuli was able to visit his mother and father from outside the facilities, communicating through firstfloor windows. But the separation anxiety his parents felt was manifest.
“Because of my dad’s age, my mom has cared for him since they were teenagers,” Robert Amatuli said. “They’ve been married over 75 years. To have that disconnect and not be able to contact each other, for her to not know how he was doing, was stressful. And for me not to be able to go into the facility was stressful.”