KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Four people have died of the coronavirus at a nursing home where at least 29 elderly patients have tested positive.
Riverbend Post Acute Rehabilitation Center on Freeman Avenue first reported the outbreak to the state late last week. It’s the third care facility in Kansas where patients have tested positive for COVID-19, but this outbreak has been the most deadly to date.
“I was just notified this morning about their mortalities,” Wyandotte County Epidemiologist Elizabeth Groenweghe said Monday.
She said the first three deaths occurred some time between late Friday and Monday.
“It is an elderly population and a population that has pre-existing healthcare conditions that leave them a bit more susceptible to COVID,” Groenweghe said.
She said she didn’t know the status of the remaining patients who tested positive, but she said that number could increase.
Groenweghe is awaiting results of more tests from other patients who have shown symptoms.
The facility, part of the Ensign Group based in California, has posted an update on its website. An administrator declined to go on camera, but said he would answer questions via email. At the time of this story’s publication, FOX4 is still waiting to hear back.
Like almost all long-term care facilities, visitors were banned in early March, which raises the question of how the virus was introduced to patients.
“It’s hard to say,” Groenweghe said. “The facility has done a lot of the right things, but there have been some staff that tested positive. That could be the source of the outbreak.”
Four employees tested positive for the virus even though, prior to the outbreak, the facility had been checking staff members’ temperatures before they were allowed to go to work.
Although that’s protocol with most long-term care facilities, Groenweghe said it’s clearly not enough.
“Someone might be infectious before they develop a fever, and some might not develop a fever at all,” Groenweghe said.
For that reason the facility is now requiring all employees to wear masks. The employees are also prevented from job sharing at other nursing homes.
