Nursing homes find 14 cases, one death

    Local nursing homes were hit hard by COVID-19 last week, as one suffered its first death of a resident who tested positive.
    The woman who passed away was in her 90s, according to information provided by the Cherokee County Health Department. She was a resident of Murphy Rehabilitation & Nursing in Peachtree.
    While she was the first COVID-19 related death in a nursing home in Cherokee County, she was fifth COVID-19 related death in the county since the pandemic began in March. She was also the second death this month.
    The woman was one of five residents reported as testing positive in the outbreak at Murphy Rehab last week. Five staff members had also tested positive as of Sunday.
    In a congregate living facility, an outbreak is two or more people testing positive.
    Valley View Care & Rehabilitation in Andrews also had an outbreak when three staff members tested positive on Aug. 18. As a result, all residents were also tested, and a fourth staff member received positive test results Monday.
    Health Director David Badger said all tests from both nursing homes were back from last week’s round of testing, with no other positive tests as of Monday.
    State-mandated biweekly testing of nursing home staff across the state began Aug. 7. As the testing continues, Badger said it is very likely that more cases will be seen at nursing homes.
    “It’s good to identify these things quickly,” he said.
    Both nursing homes have been working closely with the health department and have been following company, state and U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus.
    Nursing home staff does not need to quarantine while awaiting test results, as they would be risking the lives of residents by not being able to provide care for them if they did. They are asked to limit their movements. In Cherokee County, no one has had to work after testing positive, Badger said.
    Across the state, there have been 8,315 positive cases in nursing homes and 199 outbreaks. Out of the state’s total 2,348 deaths of persons who tested positive since March, 1,013 have been nursing home residents, while 80 percent have been people ages 65 and older.
    As of Monday afternoon, the county had 49 active cases. Since March, the county has had 386 total cases, including 19 people from other states who tested positive while in the county, and four men and one woman who passed away after testing positive.
    No one was known to be hospitalized as of Monday morning. Using data collected from 367 cases, the state reported Monday that 9 percent of the county’s cases were those ages 0-17, 8 percent were ages 18-24, 28 percent were ages 25-49, 29 percent were ages 50-64, 14 percent were ages 65-74 and 11 percent were 75 or older.
    Anyone who experiences symptoms should contact their primary care provider, the health department or urgent care. According to the CDC, symptoms include fever, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, chills, muscle aches, headache, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, fatigue, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea and new loss of taste or smell. Symptoms range from mild to severe and may appear 2-14 days after exposure.
    Anyone can have mild to severe symptoms, but older adults and those with underlying medical conditions appear to be at higher risk for severe illness. The CDC also said it’s possible for a person to be contagious two days before having symptoms and remain contagious at least 10 days after first showing signs of having the virus. People can test positive for up to three months.
    As of Monday, North Carolina had 156,396 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and 2,535 deaths related to the virus since the beginning of March. More than 136,000 of those cases are presumed to be recovered.
    More than 2 million state residents have been tested for the virus. In the last week, 6-7 percent of the tests returned positive daily.