As of Monday, the North Adams Commons Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Massachusetts is reporting a COVID-19 outbreak of at least 35 cases. Of the 30 residents and five staffers with the virus, all but four were vaccinated before testing positive. WAMC spoke with Berkshire Healthcare spokesperson Lisa Gaudet. She says the company that operates the center is following Massachusetts Department of Public Health guidance.
GAUDET: Right now we're still waiting on the sequencing. We're being told by DPH that we should presume that it's a Delta variant. But we're still waiting for those results from the Broad Institute, which is the organization that does our testing and will be doing the sequencing as well.
WAMC: Are there any other cases of COVID at other Berkshire healthcare facilities at this point?
There currently are not, no.
At this point, is Berkshire Healthcare considering any new measures around mandates with masks or vaccinations for residents or employees?
So we're following the guidance that we get from DPH. So we are in what is considered to be an outbreak mode, which guides PPE wearing and masking. We're wearing masks in all of our nursing homes to begin with, but having a facility that's in an outbreak mode has us move to a different level of PPE donning for the care of residents. At the same time, you know, the other thing that we are needing to consider- you had asked about contact tracing, we're doing our contact tracing. And one of the things that's important for folks to understand as well is that we have visitors coming in and out of our buildings every day to see their loved ones. We are not allowed to ask for verification of vaccination status. So you know, one of the things that we are also looking at is whether or not this particular outbreak was a result of a visitor who was infected, maybe didn't know they were infected. But that's also part of our contact tracing work that we're doing.
So as far as a staff vaccine mandate- that's not on the table at this time?
We are considering that. We are talking about it. We also need to, I think, as I've mentioned before, weigh that against our staffing requirements and staffing needs. But no, we are not currently in a position to mandate that.
Other Berkshire Healthcare facilities were hit hard by the COVID pandemic last year. At this point, what kind of communications are going out to other facilities in the county around the potential for outbreaks?
So what we have done is we have changed our testing approach where we are now having every building test every unvaccinated staff member on every shift before they start their shift with what's known as a rapid test. If they test negative, they can come in and start their shift. If they are positive, they are, then we administer a PCR test, and they are sent home. So that is new, just based on what's happening here in Berkshire County. We've increased our testing frequency with our unvaccinated staff.
What kind of visitation policies are in place at this point with the outbreak in the North Adams Commons- both at that facility and then countywide?
So currently at North Adams Commons, there are no visitations happening, and that will continue, that hold on visitors will continue until we begin to see the outbreak turnaround and we see a reduction in our positives. At other Berkshire Healthcare facilities it is, we are falling DPH guidelines, which allow for visitors to come and visit their loved ones. We have not suspended those visitation rights as they are a right that our residents have. We are asking folks when they arrive at the building whether or not they've been vaccinated so that we have an understanding of their vaccination status. We are, as I mentioned, going to move to testing and offering testing for visitors at all of our facilities if they are coming in to visit a loved one and they are unvaccinated. We are also going to be offering folks that would like to have a vaccination the opportunity to have a vaccination. So you know, we're trying to create an environment of safety for our residents without impacting their ability to see loved ones. We know that social isolation during the pandemic really was a negative result of having to keep visitors out of our facilities. And we believe that that, you know, is not a positive. We would like to keep those folks coming to the facility, but we're trying to make sure that we can create as safe an environment as possible through testing and also through vaccines.
