Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Worcester, Salisbury: buildings, no kids, porch)

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

Would appreciate cites for the above statements. I have worked at Massachusetts nursing homes and hospitals and I have no idea what you're talking about. You also don't seem to understand modes of transmission and are using this ignorance to trash the most underpaid and thankless-tasked workers around.

I believe you are sad about someone you know dying.

I don't. I believe they are po'd about inconvenience in planned upgrading of housing.

[Bettafish]

Outbreak in prison starts...

----------------
April 2, 2020 – 7:30 p.m. (Update #14)
The Middlesex Sheriff’s Office today announced seven employees working at the Middlesex Jail & House of Correction have tested positive for COVID-19. In addition, one employee who works in a position located outside the facility has also tested positive.

https://www.middlesexsheriff.org/covid19

[Bridge781]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

Would appreciate cites for the above statements. I have worked at Massachusetts nursing homes and hospitals and I have no idea what you're talking about. You also don't seem to understand modes of transmission and are using this ignorance to trash the most underpaid and thankless-tasked workers around.

I believe you are sad about someone you know dying.

Have you been watching the news ?


https://www.google.com/amp/s/boston....ter-house/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbc...2101064/%3famp

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbc...2098672/%3famp

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbc...2101695/%3famp

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbc...2100551/%3famp

[Bridge781]

I wasn’t trash talking the people that work there but they have to be ones spreading it. How are the people that live there and don’t leave there getting it then??

[brightdoglover]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

Have you been watching the news ?

...

No, I don't watch the news except for CNN. I've been following events in Boston online because I lived and worked there for 45 years. I have friends in healthcare working there. I have an RN and master's in public health, and worked in AIDS hospice. I read the New York Times, CDC, Johns Hopkins, and other good publications.

I have been following the pandemic details since early January everywhere, beyond the little world of the Boston outbreak. I deeply dislike this poster's desire to find some "outsider" as responsible for their inconveniences. I lived in Littleton for 27 years, where the nursing home outbreak is happening.

Your single-mindedness (your own little world) and disdain for others is quite impressive, although that isn't the best word. I only answer for the possible interest or benefit of someone reading.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

I think it was known that nursing homes were going to bear the brunt of this for months after watching what happened in Washington. Kind of wonder why more wasn’t done in MA

Part of the problem is that when it hits nursing homes hospitals don’t want the infected patients. It sad because it must be getting brought in by the workers. I think they shut down visitors. Now the hell are these people working at nursing homes still so damn susceptible to it?

My brother used to work with a woman who died of this. Sad. She was in her 50s.

My mother has severe dementia and is in a memory care facility. They closed the place off to visitors over a month ago. The place is organized as four wings of 13 rooms with a small common & dining area in each wing and a large central area. They’ve already isolated the four wings so an outbreak will hopefully only hit one wing. They had some empty rooms so they set up a 5 room quarantine area. Any staff coming in the door get their temperature taken and are asked if they’re feeling ill. The staff all wear masks. What else can they do? They can’t run a COVID-19 test on every staff member daily. The staff is human. They go home to their families after work. They have to buy food. It’s pretty much dumb luck if a nursing home doesn’t eventually have an outbreak. All they can do is watch everyone like a hawk and immediately quarantine anyone who shows any signs of illness.

[wror]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

Anxiety is a perfectly natural reaction to a global pandemic that is killing thousands and leaving millions unemployed. I suspect those without some anxiety are probably using the strongest mind drugs.

You are correct.
The natural chemicals of the mind are the strongest mind drug.

[Bridge781]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

No, I don't watch the news except for CNN. I've been following events in Boston online because I lived and worked there for 45 years. I have friends in healthcare working there. I have an RN and master's in public health, and worked in AIDS hospice. I read the New York Times, CDC, Johns Hopkins, and other good publications.

I have been following the pandemic details since early January everywhere, beyond the little world of the Boston outbreak. I deeply dislike this poster's desire to find some "outsider" as responsible for their inconveniences. I lived in Littleton for 27 years, where the nursing home outbreak is happening.

Your single-mindedness (your own little world) and disdain for others is quite impressive, although that isn't the best word. I only answer for the possible interest or benefit of someone reading.

Lol. Ok who is my disdain towards ? How is coronavirus taking out multiple people living in nursing homes then? It’s no one fault I guess but it’s happening

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

Lol. Ok who is my disdain towards ? How is coronavirus taking out multiple people living in nursing homes then? It’s no one fault I guess but it’s happening

You have an asymptomatic CNA show up to work. They touch a dozen people doing routine bathing, potty, and feeding tasks. A mask and gloves are hardly fail safe. A few days later, you have a bunch of sick people. If a few of them are mobile, they walk around giving it to everyone else before you notice they're running a fever.

[charolastra00]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

My mother has severe dementia and is in a memory care facility. They closed the place off to visitors over a month ago. The place is organized as four wings of 13 rooms with a small common & dining area in each wing and a large central area. They’ve already isolated the four wings so an outbreak will hopefully only hit one wing. They had some empty rooms so they set up a 5 room quarantine area. Any staff coming in the door get their temperature taken and are asked if they’re feeling ill. The staff all wear masks. What else can they do? They can’t run a COVID-19 test on every staff member daily. The staff is human. They go home to their families after work. They have to buy food. It’s pretty much dumb luck if a nursing home doesn’t eventually have an outbreak. All they can do is watch everyone like a hawk and immediately quarantine anyone who shows any signs of illness.

I'm so glad your mother's facility was able to organize that way. Those facilities that can take measures like that will. Many, unfortunately, can't. The facilities weren't planned with a pandemic in mind. While there have been some suspicious owners who haven't taken precautions, I have no reason to believe it's negligence on the part of the staff. Many staff likely have family members who work essential jobs and could come to work asymptomatic. When COVID-19 floors on hospitals are struggling to get adequate PPE, why would we think nursing homes - especially lower income nursing homes - would fare better? It's tragic.



A college friend is a music therapist at a large nursing home in NYC. The residents are quarantined in their rooms and he plays music in a full mask (with a cloth cover so he can get more mileage) in the hallway while the residents sit in their doorways. No cases there yet, but he is terrified of getting it himself and passing it to the residents unknowingly. Most of the other staff take public transit to get to work while he was lucky enough to borrow his dad's car to protect himself a bit more.



Institutions of all sorts are at high risk. It's part of why people are being released from prison to lower the density - so there's somewhere to attempt to isolate people.



It's also why colleges evicted their students rapidly. We knew we wouldn't be able to care for a bunch of sick students without the disease spreading throughout the school and to more vulnerable staff when students are living 2-3 in a dorm room and 20+ to a shared bathroom. My institution still has a few hundred students who couldn't get home for whatever reason, and we're providing them with limited services. There's a plan in place if they start to get sick, but it couldn't have been done unless more than 5/6 of them hadn't left campus and opened up rooms.