Florida Keys see over a 10 percent jump in COVID-19 numbers with nursing home cases
Nine residents and one employee of a Florida Keys nursing home tested positive for the novel coronavirus this week, according to the facility’s owner.
The Florida Department of Health has not confirmed the results, but once official, they will represent a jump of more than 10% in positive cases in the Keys.
Residents and staff at the 120-bed facility on Plantation Key, Crystal Health and Rehab Center, were tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, after a speech therapist there tested positive earlier this month.
Two women residents, ages 87 and 101, died the same week, but the Florida Department of Health said this week that tests show they did not have the virus.
Following the first employee’s positive result, and after the women’s deaths, the Department of Health sent a multi-agency team to the facility to test 80 residents and 70 staffers, said Jake Walden, one of the facility’s owners.
Results started coming in from Tallahassee on Friday, and 10 people are positive so far, Walden said. Some of the other people’s tests were inconclusive, and they have to be re-swabbed.
The positive residents are now isolated in a wing of the building Crystal Health has dedicated to COVID-19 patients. Their families have been notified, he said.
The facility is not taking any new residents, visitors are no longer allowed, and all group activities have been canceled, Walden said.
“This is our main focus,” he said. “We’re doing everything in our power to keep everyone safe.”
Some members of the multi-agency team the Health Department sent to Crystal Health are their to train employees on how to treat COVID-19 patients. Walden said his staff has put in extra time and effort to learn the new procedures and is working in full protective gear.
“Our employees really have been heroic from the beginning, nothing short of it,” he said.
Florida Department of Health in Monroe County Administrator Bob Eadie could not be immediately reached for comment Friday evening. The department’s two spokespeople in the Keys said they could not confirm the cases or comment on them until around 11 a.m. Saturday.
According to the latest DOH information, 80 people have tested positive in Monroe County for COVID-19, and three people have died from the disease in Monroe County.
Once the nursing home cases are added, the number will reach 90.
