LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Cases of COVID-19 in nursing homes and long-term care facilities are spiking in spite of restrictions placed early on in the pandemic.
On Monday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced there were 408 positive cases of coronavirus among nursing home residents across the commonwealth. One-hundred-and-eighty-four staff members at those facilities have been infected with the virus. Fifty-nine deaths have now been reported that are associated with those facilities.
Masonic Homes of Kentucky, one of the biggest such providers in the state, said it has no active cases on it's campus, but that doesn't mean it isn't associated with cases.
"The patients are maybe associated with our facility, because association could mean anything from they've had rehab, they went home, and then they went to the hospital," Vice President Conjuna Collier said.
Masonic Homes was one of the first facilities to restrict visitors on March 6. That directive came before statewide mandates to no longer allow visitors. Even now, Masonic Homes said it has a strict screening process for people coming onto it's campuses.
"As soon as you drive onto our Louisville campus, you go through a tent screening process that looks for signs and symptoms of anything associated with COVID," Collier said.
Meanwhile, Beshear said he would like testing availability to get to the point where all nursing homes and long-term care facilities can test at will but that it's currently not the case.
"Certainly, one of our highest priorities is individuals in our nursing homes," he said. "We admittedly don't have the capacity today to go out and test everyone in every nursing home. But it is one of our top priorities."
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