Assisted care facilities still hotspot for coronavirus, California center reports 30 plus cases

An extended care facility in Riverside, California, is among the latest such centers to report a severe outbreak of the coronavirus. 

Extended Care Hospital, a skilled-nursing center about an hour east of Los Angeles, on Sunday reported that 30 patients and some staff members have tested positive for the virus. 

Rehabilitation, nursing-caring and assisted-living facilities have been among the hardest hit by the virus, in large part because they typically have an older population, often with underlying health issues.

One of the first U.S. outbreaks of the deadly virus was at the Seattle-area Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington.

Two-thirds of the facility's residents and staff have tested positive for the virus, and the facility has been linked to 37 virus-related deaths. It also has the highest number of coronavirus deaths of any location in the U.S.

The Trump administration has set several new guidelines in recent weeks to try to curb such breakouts  – including that all nursing home facilities designate separate areas for healthy and sick residents, assign the same staff to care for the same group and close their doors to anybody who’s not providing medical attention to residents.

The American Health Care Association/ National Center for Assisted Living on Friday acknowledged that the number of infections and deaths caused by the virus will be instructive and bring about change.

“Dealing with a virus that has caused historic unrest among our entire nation, we will undoubtedly learn and adapt from this," the associations said in a joint statement to Just the News. "We will see change throughout the entire health care system, not just with long-term care providers. This pandemic has amplified the need for critical resources in long-term care that we’ve been talking about for years: additional staff and proper funding for care. We hope this will take precedence now and after we get through this.”