CHARLOTTE HALL, Md. — While recent data creates some overlap into interpreting how COVID-19 has had an impact on St. Mary’s County, the Charlotte Hall Veterans Home (CHVH) has undoubtedly spiked the numbers.

Back on April 29, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan [R] issued an executive order that all residents and staff in long-term care and nursing homes must be tested for the novel coronavirus, regardless of whether they were exhibiting symptoms. This universal testing has already raised positive test numbers across the state, and St. Mary’s is no exception.

The St. Mary’s County Health Department (SMCHD) is reporting that as of May 24, the county has confirmed 385 cases in residents and an unfortunate 14 deaths. They are also confirming that 59 county residents had to be hospitalized (not including emergency visits), 159 residents have recovered and been released from isolation, and 3,034 negative tests have come back.

Now, according to a pre-recorded message from the CHVH “COVID-19 hotline” on May 23, the facility has recorded 114 cases in residents and 48 in employees, bringing the total to 162 cases since March 26. Additionally, the veterans home has reported 15 deaths, 22 recoveries, and a total of 78 active cases. This includes 12 new resident cases and two additional deaths within the past 24 hours of the recorded message.

“This virus is highly contagious,” St. Mary’s County Health Officer Dr. Meena Brewster explained. “Once it seeds in a place, it can spread quickly even without or before its symptoms become obvious. This is especially true in long term care facilities where staff are coming in and out and working across residents and where for medical reasons residents come in and out… All of our long term care facilities in this county were aggressive early on in the course of this pandemic.”

A report published by CHVH in April of this year notes that the facility is equipped with 454 beds, and that throughout 2019 they had an average of 89% occupancy. With an 89% occupancy rate, the facility would have approximately 404 current residents, meaning that approximately 28% of their residents would have contracted COVID-19 and about 3.7% of their residents would have died from it. CHVH has not put out how many of their cases have directly contributed to the case count for the county, however it can be noted that the veteran’s home has reported more deaths than St. Mary’s County in whole.

If all 162 cases between staff and residents were designated to the county, they would comprise 42% of the total cases. While it is likely a majority of the cases fall in the county, an entire assumption would be incorrect. The zip code for Charlotte Hall, 20622, has a reported 119 confirmations as of May 24, which is roughly 31% of all St. Mary’s County cases and is more than any other county zip code.

“This was all [more] complicated earlier on when we had severely limited access to testing supplies and it was taking so long at laboratories to process those tests,” Brewster said. “The virus was likely introduced at Charlotte Hall Veterans Home pretty early on before testing became more readily available and despite the very aggressive infection control procedures they have in place… While both testing efforts – expanding testing based on more symptoms and universal testing of all staff and residents – allows us to better control the spread of infection in the facility, they have also contributed to the sudden increase in numbers of cases that you may be seeing over the past couple weeks. Keep in mind any staff who tests positive at a long-term care facility that is not a resident of our county will not be counted in the St. Mary’s County numbers of positive cases.”

SMCHD has helped provide staffing support to fill the shoes of employees at CHVH who have tested positive and have had to take off of work, as well as helping provide assistance in completing universal testing initiatives. Not to mention, SMCHD has also provided all local nursing homes and long-term care facilities in the county with additional personal protective equipment and testing kits, in conjunction with the Maryland Department of Health (MDH).

“We are working with the health department to schedule a second round of universal testing, and we are hoping that this can be accomplished this week,” the CHVH COVID-19 hotline pre-recorded message explained. ”We have received incredible support from our local and state health departments and we want each family member to know how dedicated this group of public health professionals are to helping Charlotte Hall succeed.”

As of May 24, MDH is reporting 5,939 cases of COVID-19 among congregated living residents, and 2,519 cases among staff. When compared to the statewide total of 46,313 confirmations, cases among residents and staff comprise roughly 18.3% of all cases across the board.

Arguably more alarming, Maryland has confirmed 2,162 deaths as of May 24 from COVID-19, and 1,143 of those were counted as congregate facility residents and staff, which is nearly 52.9% of the state total.

“You can’t completely close the doors to risk,” Brewster explained. “You are taking care of a very vulnerable population that has medical issues – they are inevitably going to need outside medical services that require them to leave the facility and obtain those services, and then come back to their facility home…”

“We are doing everything possible in the current circumstances to support CHVH in ensuring all guidelines and precautions are being followed in order to protect our honored veterans,” Brewster said.

 

Contact Zach at zach.hill@thebaynet.com