Santa Clara County nursing homes experiencing COVID outbreaks

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Calif. (KRON) -- In the South Bay, Santa Clara County is seeing record COVID cases and hospitalizations.

Health officials are seeing outbreaks in congregate settings like nursing homes and long term care facilities.

Officials report some of the largest outbreaks to date.

County health officials say two nursing facilities in San Jose are experiencing COVID outbreaks. Health officials say AmberWoods Gardens is one of those facilities.

"As cases rise in the community that also means that there are more cases that get introduced into these congregate settings," Dr. George Han said.

At a press briefing Thursday, Dr. George Han with Santa Clara County Health announced the latest COVID-19 outbreaks in the community stemming from nursing homes and long care facilities.

Dr. Han says two facilities in San Jose are experiencing outbreaks reporting more than 200 COVID cases that include residents and staff.

"Since March we've given them a lot of guidance on how to best protect their resident and staff from COVID-19 outbreaks," Dr. Han said.

County health officials report a total of 151 positive cases at AmberWoods Gardens in San Jose: 81 cases residents and 70 staff.

In a statement, a spokesperson for AmberWoods says the facility now known as 'Westwood Post Acute" confirms 56 residents in house and 10 staff members are infected with COVID - and that the county's latest numbers reflect the total cases since the start of the outbreak at the beginning of November.

Another long-term facility in the county reported 86 total positive cases, 66 residents, 20 staff as of Wednesday.

County officials did not release the name of the other facility.

Health officials would not comment on how the outbreaks started.

But a UCLA study back in August found employees working in multiple nursing homes serve as significant drivers of spreading the virus.

Dr. Hans did say the county has assisted facilities with staffing if employees came down with COVID or been exposed.

"More recently we provide testing resources so we can identify everyone who has been informed infected, we provide technical assistance in terms of helping them identify helping prevention measures to help implement the spread," Dr. Han said.

At AmberWoods Gardens, we're told the staff with COVID are not working so the facility is experiencing a staff shortage and is working with the county and its doctors to prevent the spread of the virus.

Staff and residents are tested weekly so we can expect the number of cases to fluctuate once those results come in.

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from KRON4 https://ift.tt/3mEwUWd