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COVID-19 cases in Arkansas nursing homes & long-term care continue to rise


The number of COVID-19 cases in Arkansas nursing home and long-term care facilities continues to rise.{ }(AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
The number of COVID-19 cases in Arkansas nursing home and long-term care facilities continues to rise. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
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The number of COVID-19 cases in Arkansas nursing homes and long-term care facilities continues to rise.

The latest numbers show the Arkansas Health Care Association is closely monitoring 33 facilities with coronavirus cases. The AHCA represents more than 300 licensed facilities in the state but has been speaking with nearly every facility to help during the pandemic.

“We have been very concerned all along and have done everything we could to procure PPE, to do training and education and our facilities have done so much to try to prevent the virus from coming in to minimize the spread,” said AHCA Executive Director, Rachel Bunch.

Bunch shared the latest data with Seven On Your Side and while most of the facilities are dealing with single-digit cases, at least three facilities are seeing a higher number of cases than other facilities.

The Briarwood Nursing Center in Little Rock has 43 residents and 17 workers who have tested positive for COVID-19.

The Walnut Ridge Nursing and Rehabilitation Center has 33 residents and eight workers who have tested positive.

The third-highest number of cases in one facility is the Lakes at Maumelle Health and Rehab Center with 29 residents and four workers testing positive.

“We have still got to conduct business in the facility and that includes delivery of medical supplies, prescriptions, food, all of those things that have to come into the facility, mail that comes to the facility,” said Bunch.

“It comes both ways - you have got workers that have to go home every night that have families, you have patients that go out to the hospital, patients who go to dialysis multiple times a week, and come back in the facility."

Bunch added staff members who have tested positive are being sent home for quarantine, while patients and residents are being isolated from the rest of the population in a facility to minimize the spread. If staff members are assigned to care for COVID-19 patients – they do not take care of non-COVID patients.

Total positive cases as of 4/22/20:

Residents: 173

Health care workers: 99

Resident deaths: 9

Recovered residents: 18

Recovered health care workers: 11

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