CT to open 4th COVID center as nursing home cases surge

As nursing home COVID-19 cases have started to surge again, the state said it plans to open a fourth longterm 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-19 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-19 recovery center during the spring, will begin accepting patients in December. The 120-bed facility recently closed as the need declined.

A total of 334 available beds are available at the four facilities, which 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 COVID Recovery Facilities at Quinnipiac Valley Center, which is housed inside an existing nursing facility, has 34 beds, while Riverside has 90. An average of 20 patients are 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-19, to free up beds in hospitals and to prevent COVID-19 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-19 data, 61 facilities had cases among staff, 17 with infected residents and 44 with cases among both between Nov. 11 and Nov. 17.

During that span, a total of 306 new COVID-19 cases were 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.

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.

She said COVID-19 patients are typically infectious anywhere from 10 to 20 days, depending on the severity of their illness. The typical stay of a resident in a COVID-19 recovery facility is 10 to 15 days, Orefice said.

Though transferring to a COVID-19 recovery facility helps residents and care facilities, Orefice said she understands why some residents might be reluctant to enter one.

“We forget nursing homes are, in fact, homes,” she said. “It is not an easy decision to ask someone to leave their home and go to another facility.”