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Wow. A resident at my mom’s small assisted living facility tested positive for the coronavirus. I learned this from my mom, not the facility. One thing I can say is that government reporting of such cases is hopelessly bureaucratic - a Gordian Knot if you will.
Here is what happened. I called the County Health Department - no response. I then called the Pennsylvania Health Department, which forwarded my inquiry to the County Health Department, which transferred me to the local police.
The local police obviously had no jurisdiction unless there was a crime, so they gave me the number of the CDC. The CDC number was a call center. Nobody gets to talk to the CDC apparently. My report would get forwarded in 7 - 10 days. I then called another CDC dispatcher.
This dispatcher referred me to the Pennsylvania Health Department again... I eventually used County Senior Services to randomly get a hold of a County Health department official who then confirmed the case at my mom’s facility, likely indirectly from a lab.
This official said the County Health Department can’t help the assisted living facility directly. All contact tracing must be done in-house by people at that facility.
When I called the facility’s senior management, they seemed overwhelmed, so I said that if 1) the virus had been diagnosed recently and 2) only staff had entered the building, then they should test recent staff first and then see with whom any infected staff interacted.
As you can see, this process is nuts. I couldn’t design a worse system.
@WSJ See my thread. Exactly what I experienced: https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-strikes-at-least-2-100-nursing-homes-across-u-s-killing-2-000-residents-11586554096?emailToken=bb1d8ad43f8ed992753823643d5d8a014DOjXae2YGskSyWD4M6MI+lbi/5E8jwJ3DsTrpDW4D/grkPB52tblUfeeCQV35wbqGJ923KBrdstxbiS0xWkzAvGmKezLQkir+fRP831NTEIVAJRZh5rhT+5HCIaSO2xxWVm7IPteTT+rnsixKMG3Q%3D%3D&reflink=article_imessage_share
This is also happening in France. They have two sets of books. One for hospitalizations and another for nursing homes, but not both. And they stop testing at nursing homes after a few confirmed cases.
@SenBobCasey @annawmathews - refer to this thread about my direct experiences w/ nursing home COVID-19 reporting in Pennsylvania.
