Over the last six weeks, The Baptist Home saw coronavirus outbreaks emerge at three of its four residential communities in Missouri for the aging. According to an update Thursday (Nov. 12), the three clusters brought a total of 89 cases and 11 deaths, but the campuses now have just nine active cases with the spread slowed or even stopped.
The latest campus impacted is Acadia Valley after a staffer tested positive in late October. Since then, a total of five staffers were infected but no residents. TBH lists four of the staffers as recovered from the virus.
At TBH’s Chillicothe campus, the outbreak started on Sept. 29 with the total infected eventually rising to 40 — 25 residents and 15 staff. Nine residents have died. The outbreak largely seemed over until a staffer tested positive on Nov. 6, perhaps unrelated to the earlier infections. TBH reported that retesting of all residents and staff since then revealed no additional positive cases.
TBH noted that after the start of the outbreak in Chillicothe, an infection control specialist from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services found the campus to be “deficiency free with no suggestions.” TBH went seven months without a COVID-19 case at any of its campuses.
At TBH’s Ozark campus, the first positive test result came on Oct. 19 with one resident, but quickly spread. A total of 44 cases eventually were found involving 27 residents and 17 staff. Two residents have died. Most others have recovered, with four residents and three staffers listed by TBH as still active.
TBH’s statement notes all residents and staff on the two campuses have been tested, staff are using personal protective equipment, and residents are “currently quarantined to their rooms.” Additionally, TBH set up “a COVID isolation ward” on the campuses, and they locked down the campuses except that “compassionate care visits will be allowed for end-of-life visits and pastoral care” in “full PPE attire.”
Although TBH went nearly seven months without any COVID cases on its campuses, the outbreaks over the past several weeks came as cases around the country continue to rise.
On Thursday, the U.S. saw a single-day record of more than 152,000 new cases — the seventh day the U.S set a new daily record in the last nine days. Additionally, the 66,000 hospitalizations nationwide is also a record since the pandemic started earlier this year. Overall, more than 242,000 people have died in the U.S., and more than 10.5 million have been infected.
