Friday, May 1, 2020

About That Spike

In addition to announcing that all schools in New York would be closed for the rest of the academic year, Governor Andrew Cuomo in his daily COVID-19 briefing today detailed the information that would now be required for every new COVID-19 case.
While not all of this information needs to made public, it would be nice if the Columbia County Department of Health were a little more forthcoming with the information it provides. It wasn't until two weeks ago that CCDOH provided any information about where the positive cases of COVID-19 were found in the county. It wasn't until this past Wednesday, in a report in the Register-Star about the financial woes of Livingston Hills Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, that it was confirmed that all 13 deaths from COVID-19 in Columbia County have been Pine Haven residents.
A total of 35 residents have tested positive and 13 residents have died at Pine Have Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Philmont, the site of the county's largest COVID-19 oubreak. The Grand Rehabilitation and Nursing at Barnwell announced its first cases over the weekend, with one resident and one staff member testing positive for the virus, [CCDOH director Jack] Mabb confirmed.
Last Friday (April 24), Barnwell did not appear in the town by town breakdown of COVID cases. "Over the weekend" (April 25 and 26), there were two reported cases at Barnwell. Today, May 1, CCDOH reports there are 37 cases at Barnwell. It is easy to infer that the spike of 30 new cases yesterday (April 30) was the result of testing at Barnwell. It had to have been. The total number of new cases last week in the rest of the county, including Pine Haven, only totaled 29.
COPYRIGHT 2020 CAROLE OSTERINK
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3 comments:

  1. veggivetMay 2, 2020 at 8:40 AM

    Carole, you probably are familiar with the mushroom principle; keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em shit.

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  2. Cheviot ViewsMay 2, 2020 at 10:26 AM

    Invaluable as always. Can't believe that overnight spike. More likely the residents were infected days or weeks before but not bothered to test. If that's the case, I shudder at the thought of what's going on inside. If
    testing was routine as it should be, there could have been a contained infection. What about the staff member. No info on contact tracing other than severe infections at the home. At least it was admitted that 1 staff and 1 resident were infected. What a sorry state considering the first nursing home outbreak was way back in March in Seattle. All that time to gear up for preventative measures. But in this scatterbrained nation run by a scatterbrain, this is what you get!
    I'd want a clarification about where the 13 deaths occurred. All in Pine Haven premises? There's mention of hospitalizations and intubation. Is Pine Haven capable?

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  3. signifierMay 2, 2020 at 7:11 PM

    Thank you Carole. This is very important info. The department of health really needs to keep doing this kind of analysis, and it has to be public...somehow. How else do we plan?
    Clearly, our local nursing homes are a catastrophic mess. But there are also signs that social distancing is working outside of these institutions.

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