Two Aberdeen Village health center residents positive for COVID-19

Continued weekly testing of health care residents at Aberdeen Village has identified two more cases of COVID-19 among the residents.

On Monday, October 19, 44 health care residents were tested for COVID-19. Of those tested, 42 were negative and 2 were positive. This brings the 7-day total of new cases to 2 residents and 1 non-direct resident care employee. The campus continues to be designated as a COVID-19 cluster by the Johnson County Health Department. A cluster is defined as two or more non-household cases of COVID-19 associated with a location during a specified period of time.

The Johnson County Health Department and Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) Epidemiology Hotline have been notified.  The health department recommends testing all health care residents Monday, October 26. Testing will continue weekly until 2 rounds of negative tests occur.

We also continue surveillance testing of employees. Surveillance testing requires all employees, agency employees, volunteers, hospice, lab and therapy providers at our campus to be tested on a frequency determined by our county’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate. Based on our county positivity rate for COVID-19 tests, our campus is testing employees once a week. We tested 130 employees on Tuesday, October 20. Those test results are still pending.

“We continue to emphasize resident and employee health and safety,” said Jeanne Gerstenkorn, PMMA’s infection preventionist and vice president for health and wellness.

The residents who tested positive are recovering in a designated area of our community and being cared for by designated staff. We will follow CDC and KDHE guidelines for when the residents may come out of isolation. Under the current guidelines, symptomatic residents may leave isolation when at least 72 hours have passed since resolution of the resident’s fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and the resident’s symptoms have improved and at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. Asymptomatic positive residents will quarantine for 14 days. Designated staff members are following doctor’s orders for treatment protocols and following CDC infection prevention protocols.

All residents continue to be monitored for signs and symptoms of COVID-19 during each shift.

All employees and contractors are encouraged to follow CDC guidelines and best practices as these are continually updated. We have been screening individuals as they enter the community building for a shift and before individuals have any direct contact with residents.  We educate all staff to stay at home if they are experiencing symptoms of a respiratory illness or not feeling well.

For more information about Aberdeen Village’s response, go to PMMA’s (Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America’s) website, presbyterianmanors.org/media-room.

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