For more than a week, state and local officials have spoken with concern about statistics showing the trend lines regarding the Covid-19 pandemic heading in the wrong direction in Western New York.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly referred to this as worthy of raising the "caution flag" in the five-county region around Buffalo. As a result, rapid testing sites will be set up around the region Saturday.
On Friday, more details behind the statistics emerged.
• A Covid-19 cluster has been found at Elderwood at Amherst, with 21 residents – 36% of its current 59 residents – having tested positive in the past several weeks, according to documents obtained by The Buffalo News and interviews with people who have family among the facility’s residents. Elderwood officials confirmed the number Friday. One of the Covid-positive residents died on Friday.
People are also reading…
• Chautauqua County officials held a news conference to discuss an outbreak at the Fieldbrook Foods plant in Dunkirk, where 49 employees have tested positive and an additional 14 cases were among close contacts of those employees.
• Cattaraugus County reported 10 new coronavirus cases on Thursday evening, the highest daily total for the county since the pandemic began. The new cases include a mix of symptomatic and asymptomatic people, some of whom were in close contact with others who contracted the virus, and some who did not know if they had been.
Christine Schuyler, Chautauqua's County's public health director and commissioner of social services, said the news from Dunkirk underscores what should be familiar advice as the pandemic continues.
"Every person in this community must take personal responsibility," Schuyler said. "What you do on your down time, on your off hours, is up to you, but please remember that the consequences of that spill over to our community."
The outbreak at Elderwood was a reminder that nursing home residents remain particularly at risk.
On Aug. 3, the nursing home wrote to family members of its residents with good news: the last patient had been discharged from its dedicated Covid-19 unit.
Two days later, bad news came in a separate letter: The nursing home’s short-lived visitation program for friends and family members of residents was being halted after a staff member tested positive for the virus.
In recent weeks, Elderwood has sent a steady stream of letters – The News has copies of seven – notifying family members about new cases involving staff or residents at the Amherst facility. A number of the letters shared the same phrase: “We know this news may be concerning.”
In a written statement Friday afternoon after inquiries from The Buffalo News, Elderwood, which operates nursing homes across Western New York and into Pennsylvania, Vermont and Rhode Island, said all residents of the Amherst facility were tested to uncover any additional cases in asymptomatic residents.
“Infirmities among the elderly can make it difficult to discern definitive symptoms, therefore Elderwood, in consultation with public health officials, decided to proceed with additional testing," the company said.
Chuck Hayes, a spokesman for the nursing home, said the residents have been isolated and are closely monitored. Family members of every resident in the facility are informed when someone tests positive, and Covid-19 patients’ families are provided additional information about their loved ones.
"We have tried to be as communicative and as transparent with our families as possible. We certainly understand their concerns and we're doing everything we can to care for the residents and keep the families informed," Hayes said.
Test results returned Friday afternoon showed that 4 of the 21 residents have since recovered and no longer test positive.
The nursing home said its protocols also include grouping Covid-19-positive residents together and assigning specific care teams to avoid contamination into other parts of the facility. Beyond isolation of Covid-19-positive residents, the nursing home has also eliminated all communal activities and required full personal protection equipment – including gowns, gloves, eye protection and masks – of its staff.
Cuomo, who has defended the state’s nursing home policies in the face of criticism over a later-revised order that required the facilities to admit people from hospitals even if they had been positive for Covid-19, on Friday announced that the percentage of Covid-19 tests coming back positive across the state had dropped to 0.65%, which he said was the lowest since the beginning of the pandemic.
In Western New York, however, Cuomo has raised caution flags about the percentage of Covid-19 tests that have come back positive.
On Monday, Cuomo said there were Covid-19 cases at two nursing homes in the region. He said they were “identified by state-mandated testing of staff.” He did not, however, reveal the nursing homes by name.
Family members of nursing home residents say the state should be publicly naming nursing homes or assisted living facilities that see Covid-19 cases, especially given the vulnerable population who reside at them.
The first letter to family members of Elderwood at Amherst was the one sent Aug. 5, which notified them of a positive case among staff. It did not identify what job the person held or where he or she specifically worked.
Another letter dated Aug. 8 said two more staff members tested positive that week, and that test results were pending for 60 residents. That letter also noted that since the pandemic began, a total of five residents of the Covid-19 specialty unit had died. That center was closed in early August after caring for more than 100 patients since March.
On Aug. 18, Elderwood notified family members that four residents tested positive and that they were “strictly isolated” in the facility’s secured Dementia Memory Care Unit. A family member said Friday in an interview that automated phone calls were also received in the past week. The calls revealed more positive cases among residents, and included a call last Friday that said 12 residents were infected. Family members have been told the cases are, so far, confined to the one dementia unit on the facility’s second floor.
Last month, after Cuomo eased up on a ban against nursing home visits, Elderwood began allowing visits. But it limited them to two family members who could stay for no more than 20 minutes and banned any physical contact with a resident and prohibited family members from bringing in gifts or other items from the outside. The visits then stopped in early August when the first of the staff positives surfaced.
Outbreak at Fieldbrook plant led to 63 cases
Meanwhile, Chautauqua County officials expressed hope Friday that they are "over the hump" regarding the recent coronavirus outbreak at the Fieldbrook Foods plant in Dunkirk.
The outbreak of 63 cases has led to the highest coronavirus numbers the county has seen during the pandemic, officials said.
They also said the plant will not close, and that about 65% of the plant's 650 employees have been tested, with additional test results expected soon.
"I am very hopeful that we are over the hump with Fieldbrook Foods," said Schuyler. "That doesn't mean I think we're over the hump with Covid."
Officials said 49 employees have tested positive at Fieldbrook Foods, while an additional 14 cases were among close contacts of those employees.
"We can say there is community spread and workplace spread," said Schuyler.
The first Fieldbrook Foods case dates to Aug. 16. The county has reported 66 cases in the last four days, most of which are related to Fieldbrook Foods. The 66 cases represent nearly 20% of the county's 352 total cases recorded since the pandemic began in March.
Part of the reasoning for keeping the plant open, officials said, is that it has a first and second shift, with a deep cleaning conducted during the third shift. Schuyler also said the company has been cooperative with testing, including a mass testing event on Tuesday, and contact tracing.
Chautauqua County Executive Paul M. Wendel Jr. said the state initially considered recommending temporarily closing Fieldbrook Foods.
"As we went through all the information, and all the processes, and the sanitation, the determination was made that they would not close," Wendel said. "It was in concert with everyone. The state was satisfied with the processes that were in place."
Schuyler became emotional when she discussed the work of her staff.
"These have been stressful times, and it gets to be very emotional, because I think there are some people out there who do not recognize that public health workers are front-line workers," she said. "They are working very diligently to stop the spread of this disease in this community."
The region's increased numbers have been driven primarily by Erie and Chautauqua counties. Cattaraugus, Allegany and Niagara counties also make up the Western New York region.
Friday's news was a reminder that the virus is continuing to spread.
"I'm hopeful that because of this size of an outbreak within our community, people are paying attention, and they're realizing that we need to learn to live in this world, with a pandemic, with no vaccine," Schuyler said. "There are going to be infections, there are going to be outbreaks. People are going to get sick. It's our job to reduce that spread as much as we can."
