28 residents and 10 staff are confirmed COVID-19 cases at Stonebrooke Rehabilitaton Center in New Castle

As of today, 28 residents and 10 staff members at Stonebrooke Rehabilitation Center had tested positive.

“We understand the worry and concern for patients, their families and the community created by this outbreak and we are working closely with the Indiana State Department of Health and Stonebrook Rehabilitation Center to limit the transmission of the infection and to provide for the safety of all residents and staff in the facility,” Cox said.

Henry County Health Department staff will work with Stonebrook to conduct contact tracing. The Health Department will also work to ensure the availability of needed personal protective equipment.

Stonebrooke is part of American Senior Communities. A spokesperson for American Senior Communities (ASC) said the company “created its own testing strike team of nurses and partnered with a private lab to expand our testing capabilities” and is “reporting all positive cases methodically.”

“Senior communities that test aggressively may report higher number of cases than other communities that do not have the test capabilities of ASC,” the company said.

The State of Indiana is not requiring nursing homes and assisted-living facilities to release their specific COVID-19 case numbers.

Instead, the state health department provides a statewide total of coronavirus infections at coronavirus.in.gov.

According to the state numbers, there are 3,033 positive coronavirus cases in Indiana long-term care facilities, with 584 deaths occurring in those facilities because of the virus.

Cox said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are planning to provide “by facility” numbers through an online tool in the next few weeks.

Health department’s concerns

“Our long-term care residents remain one of our highest risk groups for contracting COVID-19. Being a resident or family member of a resident in a long-term care facility right now is scary,” Cox said. “Knowing that your loved one may die without you by their side is heartbreaking. THIS is one reason why experts have been screaming at the top of their lungs that we should be taking this virus seriously.”

Cox has listened to a lot of people complain that the health department and local government are “inciting fear.”

“But I wonder, do they not have a loved one in a long-term care facility?” she said. “Long term care facilities struggle with maintaining qualified staff outside of a pandemic. During a pandemic, it gets even harder.”

Workers at these facilities who are showing symptoms of COVID-19 are told to self-isolate at home and not come to work for at least 14 days, further stretching the staff numbers while still trying to care for residents.

“We know that an individual can test positive for COVID-19 and show no symptoms,” Cox said. “What we still do not understand is how long a person can spread the virus and at what point they are most contagious. It has also been demonstrated that a person can test negative one day and positive the next. Some individuals who have been afflicted with COVID-19 are testing positive for 30 days after their illness.”

It is not possible right now to test all healthcare workers at once, Cox said.

“Even if we could test every long-term care resident and staff member, we would have to test them every day and we certainly could not wait 72 hours or more for the test result. Therefore, we continue to be very judicious with who we test and when,” she said. “We absolutely want to test residents, patients and health care workers who develop signs and symptoms of COVID-19.”

Several testing sites have opened in the last week and a half in Indiana providing better access for everyone to include healthcare workers and other essential employees. A maps of all Indiana testing sites can be found at https://www. coronavirus.in.gov/2524.htm.