Health care workers are potentially in danger as well

Vallejo Times-Herald, By John Glidden, April 29, 2020

Eighteen residents at the Windsor Vallejo Nursing and Rehabilitation Center have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the California Department of Health.

The skilled nursing facility also reported that health care workers at the facility have been infected as well.

Vallejo spokeswoman Christina Lee said on Tuesday that the Solano County Public Health Department and the county’s epidemiology team are overseeing operations at the facility after being notified of the infections last Friday.

“At that time, the confirmed number of cases was 12 residents with positive tests and four staff members with positive tests,” Lee wrote. “It’s not known how the virus reached this facility.”

That number increased to 18 residents infected on Monday in what officials are calling a cluster outbreak.

Solano County Public Health Administrator Jayleen Richards said Tuesday that the county is taking the cluster outbreak very seriously.

“We’ve been testing the staff and residents there,” she said. “We will be checking in with the facility each day.”

Richards said this is the county’s first cluster outbreak of COVID- 19.

Josh Sable, general counsel for Windsor Healthcare, told the Times-Herald Tuesday that there have been no deaths associated with the cluster outbreak at the care facility.

Sable didn’t respond to requests from this newspaper to provide the number of total infected residents and health care workers at the Vallejo facility.

“Windsor Vallejo Care Center has experienced a slight increase in the number of residents diagnosed with COVID-19, but a decrease in the number of infected employees,” he wrote in a prepared statement to this newspaper. “Rest assured, since the onset of this pandemic, Windsor’s clinical team has been collaborating closely with local, state and federal authorities, as well as the facility’s medical director. Nothing is more important to us than providing a safe environment for our residents and team members.”

Lee said the facility has created an isolation wing for residents who have been confirmed positive.

“They are placed in a specific wing of the facility to receive care from nurses/staff that do not provide care to patients in the other wings of the facility to help slow the spread,” she explained.

Sable said employees are screened at the start of each shift for symptoms of COVID-19, “including daily temperature checks and completion of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-compliant screening questionnaire. Employees who show signs of illness are asked to leave immediately and isolate at home.”

He also stated that visits to the facility have been restricted, while staff have increased sanitation “of frequently-touched surfaces.”

“We have ample supplies of personal protective equipment,” Sable said.

According to the state, eight other Solano County care facilities have reported no COVID-19 infections of residents or staff members.

Contact reporter John Glidden at 707-553-6832.