Solano Nursing Homes do not appear in State’s “snapshot” of homes with COVID-19 – good news?

By Roger Straw, April 20, 2020
Gateway Care & Rehabilitation Center, Hayward CA | KTVU.com

In light of news reports of serious regional [SF Chron] and national [Washington Post] outbreaks of COVID-19 in long term care facilities, we have been listening intently for information about Solano County nursing homes and congregate retirement facilities, without much luck.

On Friday, April 17, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) released a “snapshot” listing of all known skilled nursing facilities reporting COVID-19 among staff or residents.  The list did not include any facilities in Solano County.  No news is good news, presumably.

However, according to the CDPH, the data is incomplete.  “The data is comprised of a point in time snapshot of the 86% of SNFs [skilled nursing facilities] who reported their data within the last 24 hours.”

It is possible that Solano facilities are among the 14% of California facilities who did not report during that time frame.

There are 1224 skilled nursing facilities in California.  In Friday’s CDPH listing, 258 reported having one or more COVID-19 case.

In an April 17 newsletter, Solano County Public Health stated “Solano Public Health staff is checking in with long-term care facilities and skilled nursing homes to ensure that these agencies are prepared to handle outbreaks and that seniors continue to be protected.”  It is not clear whether County officials plan to share publicly what they find.

California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) does an excellent job of describing the missing elements in the State’s report:

California Identifies 261 Nursing Homes with Residents and Staff Who Have COVID-19
What Data’s Missing; What Action is Needed Now?

Excerpt:
“It is critical that California start treating outbreaks in long term care facilities with the same urgency it does for wildfires. The state should deploy multi-agency strike teams that have command of all available public and private resources to every facility with an outbreak and appoint commanders to lead efforts to save residents lives and to keep the public well informed about their actions and outcomes on a daily basis.

“Beyond containing tragedies, California officials must do much more to prevent them. […continued]

Medicare identifies 9 nursing homes in Solano County, 4 in Fairfield, 3 in Vallejo and 2 in Vacaville.  Other types of long-term health care facilities are listed on the CDPH’s Cal Health Find Database.

Perhaps the best listing of congregant retirement facilities in Solano County is a simple Google search for retirement communities in solano county.