Nursing home residents test negative

  • Efforts to protect the staff and residents at Valley View Care & Rehabilitation Center in Andrews paid off when no positive COVID-19 test results were returned last week after one person came down with the coronavirus the week before. Photo by Sam Jokich
    Efforts to protect the staff and residents at Valley View Care & Rehabilitation Center in Andrews paid off when no positive COVID-19 test results were returned last week after one person came down with the coronavirus the week before. Photo by Sam Jokich

        Andrews – Valley View Care & Rehabilitation Center residents and staff received good news Thursday morning, when they learned all 114 tests for COVID-19 returned negative.
        “I feel great,” Mark Chandross, administrator of Valley View, said before directing further questions to the company’s vice president of corporate communications.
        Cherokee County Health Director David Badger said all nursing home facilities in the county have been very proactive in protecting against the coronavirus for a long time.
        “Once again, this reinforces the notion we have to be vigilant,” he said of the results.
        However, Badger added that the tests were like taking a photo; it shows what is happening in the facility at that moment in time. They need to continue following best practices to prevent transmission of the disease.
        “Viruses are carried human to human,” he said. “That’s why the risk is always there.”
        The nursing home learned on April 20 that one resident tested positive for COVID-19. The individual left the facility for medical care and upon returning to the facility was isolated, as is the facility’s procedure. The resident was not experiencing symptoms, but due to possible exposure while receiving care outside the facility was tested.
        The resident was still doing well and not experiencing symptoms, according to information available to Badger as of Monday morning.
        The staff and residents were tested by the Cherokee County Health Department shortly after the resident’s test returned positive results. Valley View started prohibiting visitors on March 12, ahead of many other facilities. Any resident who leaves the facility and returns is quarantined for 14 days.
        The nursing home has been working closely with the health department to protect its residents and staff, following all policies set for the coronavirus by government officials, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and their owner, Consulate Health Care.
        Chandross said they would continue to protect residents and staff.
        “We have to be very vigilant, still,” he said.
        Valley View is a 76-bed skilled nursing center with about 48 residents and 75 staff members.
        The CDC lists people ages 65 and older, especially those who live in a nursing home or long-term care facility, as high risk for severe illness from COVID-19. While only 24 percent of the state’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 are those older than 65, 86 percent of COVID-19 related deaths are those 65 and older. About 40 percent of the state’s COVID-19 related deaths are nursing home residents.