The Indiana State Department of Health continues to revise its list of COVID-19 cases in long-term care facilities. The state has asked facilities to report their historical case data from March 1 through July 14.
During state officials’ COVID-19 press conference Wednesday, Family and Social Services Administration Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dan Rusyniak said another 95 long-term facilities were added in Monday’s update. “After they submit, we need to verify the data accuracy,” he added. “We do this by crosschecking the information. For instance, if they send us a case that’s positive, we want to look in our corresponding test databases to find a corresponding lab result. If they have a death, we want to also crosscheck that with our death reporting systems.”
Locally, Golden LivingCenter of Knox is now listed as having fewer than five COVID-19 cases among its staff but no resident cases. The original list said that the facility hadn’t submitted the requested data. However, Golden LivingCenters – Indiana President Wesley Rogers said in a statement that the data for all 23 of its facilities had been turned in by the July 14 deadline, and the company received confirmation to that effect from the Indiana State Department of Health. The issue was corrected in Monday’s update.
Golden LivingCenters also has COVID-19 information on its website. It shows that no residents of the Knox facility have tested positive from the start of the pandemic, but none have tested negative, either.
Golden LivingCenter was the only facility in Starke, Marshall, or Pulaski counties whose data have been revised since the state’s initial list. Signature Healthcare of Bremen and Pulaski Health Care Center in Winamac also reportedly had staff members test positive. Dr. Rusyniak said that when every nursing home employee was tested last month, about one percent were positive. He said the state plans to test staff again in August.
Miller’s Merry Manor of Plymouth was the only local long-term care facility to report any positive resident cases or deaths.
Rusyniak said the newly-reported data show the human impact of the pandemic. “It is easy to get caught up in arguments around masks and data reporting and reopening, but for the Hoosiers who live and work in these long-term care facilities, this pandemic is about life and death,” he said. “This is why we are compelled to protect those vulnerable individuals and why we collectively do so by wearing masks, washing our hands, and socially distancing.”
The state as a whole has seen at least 1,390 deaths among long-term care residents. Rusyniak stressed that the numbers are still preliminary and are likely to change.
