‘Cuomo’s edict, if reported correctly, dooms thousands of elderly to illness and likely death…’
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) The Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths told New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reverse a policy that forces nursing homes to accept new residents infected with the coronavirus who have been discharged from hospitals but are still recovering.
“Cuomo’s edict, if reported correctly, dooms thousands of elderly to illness and likely death,” the committee wrote in a press release. “Basic infection control says to identify and contain. Cuomo’s edict does the opposite: conceal and spread.”
Another organization, AMDA, said that “admitting patients with suspected or documented coronavirus infection represents a clear and present danger to all of the residents of a nursing home,” Fox News reported.
The Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths pointed to a New Jersey nursing home as the “model of what should be done.”
St. Joseph’s Senior Nursing Home in Woodbridge, New Jersey, 24 out of 94 residents tested positive for COVID-19 and staff became sick as well. The 70 residents who did not test positive are now presumed positive, USA Today reported.
Overwhelmed with sick staff and residents, officials with the New Jersey Department of Health and CareOne, a nursing home company, arranged to transfer all of St. Joseph’s residents to a nearby CareOne facility.
CareOne Executive Vice President Lizzy Straus said the two nursing homes had not worked together before, but they “immediately began working with the state and local officials.”
“The state determined it was in the best interest of both the COVID-19-positive residents and those not impacted by the virus, to transfer all patients to another facility,” she said.
CareOne moved its 61 residents at a nearby virus-free facility in Whippany to various other CareOne locations to make room for the St. Joseph’s patients. That way, patients without COVID-19 cases will not live with COVID-19-positive patients.
St. Joseph’s residents who move to CareOne’s Whippany location will be separated into two groups: those who tested positive for COVID-19 and those who are presumed positive.