These two clusters account for almost 60% of Covid cases here
May 5,2020
Tulare County has reported another nursing home in the county has been infected with Covid-19. Sierra Valley Rehab in Porterville has 20 cases says the county.Meanwhile cases in four other county nursing homes continue to grow. The largest is the 205 cases at Visalia’s Redwood Springs. Also higher are 99 cases reported at Lindsay Gardens and 12 cases at Linwood Gardens and 22 cases at Dinuba Healthcare.That is about 358 cases of the total in the county of 858 positive cases at press time or more than 40% of all the cases. Other parts of the US are citing a lower but still shocking number of 24% of all cases happening in nursing homes.
The other big portion of the cases here appear to be in food processing plants like Ruiz Foods in Dinuba and Tulare where the count is now 107 virus cases. In addition the county says some 30 workers at Central Valley Meat Co in Hanford who have been infected – reside in Tulare County.
Between the two clusters- nursing homes and food processors- they account for nearly 60% of the total victims in the county. Infected people in both situations spend their days in close proximity to one another.Here again are latest numbers in Tulare County.
Nursing Home Facilities:
•Redwood Springs: 205 total cases
•Lindsay Gardens: 99 total cases
•Linwood Meadows: 12 total cases
•Dinuba Health care: 22 total cases
•Sierra Valley Rehab: 20 total cases
Food processing Facilities:
•Ruiz Foods: 107 total cases
•Central Valley Meats: 30 total cases
Tulare County has recorded 40 deaths from the virus so far.
Nursing home issues
Kaiser Health recently released a study that shows that that nursing homes in California infected with virus often have lower ratings than those where no outbreak has happened.
“Compared with homes reporting no patient infections, California facilities with one or more patients with a COVID-19 case had on average a 25% fewer registered nurses per resident in the final three months of 2019, the last period for which the federal government has published data.
In addition, 91% of nursing homes reporting at least one case of the virus had a previous health violation for not following infection control rules, while 81% of homes without reported cases had such violations. Typical violations included nurses or aides not washing their hands or wearing protective clothing around potentially contagious patients.
“With low RN staffing, it is not surprising that these facilities have had previous violations for infection control and poorer overall quality as measured by having more deficiencies,” said Charlene Harrington, a professor emerita of the School of Nursing at the University of California-San Francisco. “It is a classic situation that reaffirms what researchers have found previously, only the situation with the COVID-19 virus is far more serious than anything the nursing homes have experienced before.”
Food processors face challenge
Meat processors where workers are in close quarters, appear to be particularly impacted by the spread of the virus. This week more than 700 employees at a Tyson Foods meat factory in Perry, Iowa, tested positive for coronavirus.
Also this week more than 370 workers at the Triumph Foods pork plant in St. Joseph, Mo., tested positive for the coronavirus, state health officials announced on Monday. Slaughterhouses across the nation continue reporting high numbers of cases even as some locations are preparing to reopen based on President Donald Trump’s executive order. Meat shortages around the country are being reported.Politico reports that more than a thousand Wendy’s restaurants in the U.S. (nearly 1 in 5) are out of beef products because of meatpacking plant closures, according to research from financial services firm Stephens Inc.