Victim’s Family Voices Concerns After Vallejo Nursing Home COVID-19 Outbreak Claims 16 Lives

CBS SF Bay Area KPIX5, by Joe Vazquez, May 29, 2020

VALLEJO (CBS SF) — A COVID-19 outbreak at The Windsor Vallejo Care Center has claimed 16 lives and left 112 residents infected with the virus, according to Solano County health officials.

On Thursday, a family of one of the residents who died was voicing concerns about the conditions that led to the outbreak. Shawnie Bennett and some other victims’ family members have started a petition on change.org, asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to shut the facility down.

“I believe my brother’s death could have been prevented had they taken proper precautions,” Bennett said.

William Bennett III had been in the facility since last year after suffering a stroke. The coronavirus killed the 31-year-old on May 13th.

“The patient that was in his room who was coughing didn’t have on a mask,” Shawnie Bennett said. “Nor was my brother offered a mask. There are things that they could have done to prevent the death.”

California Health officials have just issued brand new guidelines, saying every nursing home has to test every staff member and every patient at least once a week.

The Solano Public Health department said, in fact, that is exactly what they are doing now at Windsor.

Also, Solano officials said they were keeping covid-positive residents separated from those testing negative. Staffers are being isolated as well, and contact tracing is being done to try to curb the spread of the virus.

KPIX 5 reached out to Josh Sable, an attorney for Windsor, who emailed back that no one would be available for an interview.