Families weren’t told of virus case
Assisted living facility delayed news
“A few weeks” after the first resident at an assisted living facility in East Memphis tested positive for COVID-19, family members and possibly some employees were still being notified, according to Alisa Haushalter, director of the Shelby County Health Department.
They were still being notified Tuesday, Haushalter said, after that one case became an outbreak, with five residents and one staff member testing positive for the new coronavirus. Haushalter said she was hopeful everyone would be notified by the end of the day.
Shelby County officials have declined to name the facility, saying they are working with the facility’s leadership to release their own press release.
Haushalter defended the decision not to notify everyone associated with the facility of the first case, which on Monday she said had been identified “a few weeks ago.”
“It was not an outbreak,” she said. “It was one single case. Then there was notice of a second case, at which point that’s a red flag to us that that could be a sign of transmission within the facility.”
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.
On Monday, Haushalter said they learned of the second case “about two weeks earlier” and did significant testing over the weekend.
A “strike team” from the Shelby County Health Department has continued to work with the facility to trace contacts and intervene since the weekend, she said.
Haushalter said individual circumstances may also stand in the way of a facility notifying families of residents. Some people, for example, may not be easily reachable by phone or email, she said.
Four test results are still pending from the facility, she said. Eighteen tests have returned with negative results.
A “strike team” from the Shelby County Health Department has continued to work with the facility to trace contacts since the weekend, Haushalter said.