'Germ-fest' party preceded deadly nursing home outbreak
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/he...ing-home-outbreak/ar-BB10QNR2?ocid=spartanntp
By BERNARD CONDON and CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press
2 hrs ago
KIRKLAND, Wash. (AP) — In the days before the Life Care Center nursing home became ground zero for coronavirus deaths in the U.S., there were few signs it was girding against an illness spreading rapidly around the world.
Visitors came in as they always did, sometimes without signing in. Staffers had only recently begun wearing face masks, but the frail residents and those who came to see them were not asked to do so. And organized events went on as planned, including a purple-and-gold-festooned Mardi Gras party last week, where dozens of residents and visitors packed into a common room, passed plates of sausage, rice and king cake, and sang as a Dixieland band played “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
“We were all eating, drinking, singing and clapping to the music,” said Pat McCauley, who was there visiting a friend. “In hindsight, it was a real germ-fest.”
That was just three days before last Saturday’s announcement that a Life Care health care worker in her 40s and a resident in her 70s had been diagnosed with the new virus. The news would be followed over the next few days by the first resident deaths: two men in their 70s, a woman in her 70s and a woman in her 80s.
Of the 14 deaths across the nation as of Friday, at least nine have been linked to the Seattle-area nursing home.
As disease detectives try to solve the mystery of how exactly the coronavirus got inside Life Care, they are also questioning whether the 190-bed home that
had been fined before over its handling of infections was as vigilant as it could have been in protecting its vulnerable patients against an outbreak that had already killed thousands in China and around the world.
A team of federal and state regulators planned to visit Life Care on Saturday, a move that could lead to sanctions, including a possible takeover of its management. The team will look at the home’s practices, including infection control.
In an outbreak like this, "it’s not business as usual, so business as usual is not going to be OK,” said Dr. Mark Dworkin, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. “There needs to be some sort of mobilization within the facility for enhanced adherence to procedures. Infection control and visitors logging in. These things need to be translated out across the country.”
Life Care did not respond to questions from The Associated Press that were sent to an email address set up for news media inquiries. In the week since the outbreak began, the center has issued statements saying it grieves with the families who have lost loved ones.
It has also noted that visits have been halted, staffers are being screened and residents with any kind of respiratory illness have been placed in isolation.
Several family members and friends who visited residents at Life Care over the past few weeks told the AP they didn’t notice any unusual precautions, and none said they were asked about their health or if they had visited China or any other countries struck by the virus.