December 28, 2020 —
I apologize for the hiatus during which your reporter abandoned her post. Sadly, a lot occurred during this timeframe and it brought disappointing news.
On December 24, this announcement, in part, was made:
“We received a positive test result for a contract employee in the Salon this morning. This individual is currently asymptomatic. We have several residents in Independent Living and Cascadilla House who had exposure to this individual during the infectious period. All residents have been notified and placed on quarantine.
We cancelled Cascadilla House visitation for today while determining exposures and assessing risk. At this time we are hopeful that Cascadilla House visitation may resume on Saturday and Taughannock House visitation will not be impacted. This is an emerging situation and I will provide information as it is available.
We also received a positive test for another employee today – this does not appear to have created an exposure for any residents or staff, but risk assessment and contact tracing are in progress.”
However, then, on December 28, this news was posted:
“We are still waiting on guidance about the re-opening of the salon.
We also had two positive results on Christmas day – a staff person in Cascadilla House and a contractor. Unfortunately, a positive result in Cascadilla House has resulted in a suspension of visitation again for the health center – we were very disappointed to communicate this to residents and families on Christmas day. The contractor who tested positive did not have any significant contacts on campus. All residents of Cascadilla House have been tested and we are expecting those results soon.
Laurie Mante noted, ‘Although these positive results are frustrating, they are signs that our aggressive testing strategy is working. So far, we have not had any residents test positive. ‘” Persons with the positive test results have no known association with each other, suggesting that any infection resulted from community spread. Obviously, it remains to be seen what impact the just-passed Christmas holiday will have. Many locations are already showing significant spikes in positivity rates.
Although this news is disappointing, we are looking forward to our first COVID vaccination clinic next week. A series of three are currently scheduled. In this round, residents of the nursing home and those staff providing consent will be vaccinated. More details are coming soon.