13 of 15 living at a Freeburg home for adults with disabilities are infected with COVID
Most of the residents at a small facility in Freeburg that cares for adults with developmental disabilities have contracted the novel coronavirus, and an infected employee is still working because the outbreak caused a staff shortage, according to the executive director.
Freeburg Terrace reported its first cases of the virus to the St. Clair County Health Department in August, five months into the coronavirus pandemic. Health officials said the 16-bed Freeburg facility recorded 18 new cases on Wednesday, bringing its total to 20.
Executive Director Jim Haney said in an interview Friday that 13 residents and seven employees contracted the coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 respiratory disease. There are a total of 15 residents receiving care at Freeburg Terrace, he said.
Haney said one of the employees who tested positive for COVID-19 does not have symptoms and continues to come to work.
“In a crisis situation, which we’re in, we have to have the asymptomatic staff on duty,” Haney said.
Pandemic guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that this is allowed “as a last resort.”
Haney said the facility has no restrictions on who the employee can work around, including other staff members or residents who are not infected, because all staff members wear personal protective equipment. Residents also wear face masks, Haney said.
“They’re wearing full PPE, so they can work with any of the individuals,” he said. “There’s no restriction, no.”
The other six Freeburg Terrace employees who tested positive were experiencing symptoms, so they were sent home, according to Haney. That also is in line with the CDC’s guidelines. Haney said staff members from other facilities, “temporary transfers,” are helping out in their absence.
CDC allows COVID-19 positive staff to work
The CDC guidelines lay out steps health care facilities should take during staff shortages before letting someone with COVID-19 work around people who are not infected.
These are the steps in the order the CDC says they should be followed:
- Transfer COVID-19 patients to other facilities with adequate staffing.
- Allow employees who have been exposed but who have not tested positive come to work.
- Allow employees who tested positive or who are suspected to be positive do their work without interacting with other people, such as through telemedicine.
- Allow employees who tested positive to care for people who also tested positive.
- Allow employees who tested positive to care for people who are suspected to be positive.
- “As a last resort,” allow employees who tested positive to care for people who have not tested positive and who are not suspected to be positive.
The St. Clair County Health Department could not immediately be reached for comment about the situation at Freeburg Terrance.
What Freeburg Terrace is doing to protect residents
Haney said most of the infected residents have no symptoms. Five of them are being treated for a cough, their only symptom, according to Haney. Everyone is in isolation, receiving meals and services in their rooms.
Employees have been regularly disinfecting the facility since March by wiping down surfaces every two hours, Haney said.
Outdoor visits between residents and their families, which were only recently allowed to happen at long-term care facilities again, have stopped at Freeburg Terrace because of the outbreak, Haney said.
“Our priority is the safety and health of our individuals, and we continue to do everything we can in spite of the outbreak to keep it contained,” he said.
Long-term care facilities across the state have been largely closed to the public throughout the pandemic to prevent transmission to the residents inside. But employees may be exposed traveling around communities where the virus is present and bring it inside a facility.
Virus spread picks up in southwestern Illinois
In St. Clair County and the rest of the larger metro-east region, the infection rate is the highest in Illinois.
Health officials measure the infection rate based on the percentage of coronavirus tests that are positive. They call it the positivity rate.
The metro-east’s positivity rate was 10.4% as of Tuesday, the latest date for which information was available on Friday.
The rate was as low as 1.7% in Illinois’ East Central region that includes Champaign County. It was 5.5% in Chicago.
Haney said Freeburg Terrace was “very fortunate” to have no cases of the virus for months even as other local facilities reported outbreaks.
“As St. Clair County’s positivity rate has skyrocketed, I had been nervous that our luck would run out at some point,” Haney said. “COVID is a sneaky thing.”
