Belmont nursing home dealing with COVID outbreak

“An outbreak is an outbreak, and that is what we are dealing with right now,” Kriger said.

Kriger said the facility is doing its best to control it, including not having visitors in the past year, testing all staff and residents weekly and not admitting new residents from hospitals over the last two weeks. Anyone at the facility showing symptoms like lower oxygen levels or elevated temperatures is moved into a special quarantine zone in the building to avoid others at the facility. If the person tests positive, there is an automatic 14-day quarantine. Fewer than 10 staff members in the past year have tested positive.

“I’m feeling very optimistic that we are going to get through this,” Kriger said.

The Belmont facility is a skilled nursing facility and must have licensed nurses available 24 hours a day. The facility is licensed for 74 residents but only has around 43 right now, with around 100 staff. Before the pandemic, it was able to have two patients in the same room, as all rooms are double rooms, but it has had its availability cut in half since the pandemic.

Carlmont Gardens said around 90% of residents and staff had been vaccinated after it partnered with CVS/pharmacy. CVS brought its team in twice to the facility Dec. 29 and Jan. 19, with one more CVS visit expected Feb. 9. The February visit will help vaccinate anybody CVS missed the first two times. CVS did not vaccinate residents who were sick or had symptoms of COVID-19 at its last two visits and vaccinating any remaining residents is at the top of the priority list in February.

Kriger said the past year has been challenging, but the facility has gotten lots of support from the families of residents who have been supportive, hospitals who cooperate with them about accepting new residents, staff who have stepped up and advice from San Mateo County Health.

“It has been monumentally challenging, and we have identified new teammates at every turn,” she said.

Nursing and assisted living facilities in Belmont and the Peninsula have seen a rise in COVID-19 cases in January. Silverado Belmont Hills Memory Care Community, an assisted living facility in Belmont, had one resident die directly from complications related to COVID-19 in January, while another resident with dementia receiving hospice service died with COVID-19, according to Jeff Frum, senior vice president of communications with Silverado. Burlingame Skilled Nursing also dealt with a recent COVID-19 outbreak in early January that resulted in cases for 118 residents, 49 staff and caused one employee’s death.

curtis@smdailyjournal.com

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