SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 3: Westwood Post-Acute, formerly known as Amberwood Gardens in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2020. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
SAN JOSE — As COVID-19 cases in California surge once again, Bay Area nursing homes and homeless centers have been hit with outbreaks, including two San Jose nursing facilities that have a combined 232 cases.
One facility, Westwood Post-Acute, which was formerly Amberwood Gardens, had 151 total confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday, according to Santa Clara County officials, including 81 among residents there and 70 among staff.
The other facility, Skyline Healthcare Center, had 86 total positive cases as of Wednesday, with 66 cases among residents and 20 among health care workers.
County officials said they are providing specialized teams to investigate the outbreaks and provide support to affected facilities. They are conducting testing on-site, enforcing safety measures and offering county staff up to serve in the facilities if staffing is short due to facility employees testing positives.
“The larger the situation, the more resources we provide,” said Assistant Health Officer Elsa Villarino.
Representatives from Westwood Post-Acute issued a written statement to this newspaper noting that “Preventing the spread of the Covid-19 is Westwood Post-Acute (Westwood) highest priority.”
While the 258-bed facility avoided a COVID outbreak for most of the pandemic under a mitigation plan approved by the state, the facility’s statement said, it is now experiencing an outbreak and currently has 56 residents and 10 employees still confirmed positive for the virus.
“All employees with COVID restrictions are not working and the facility is dealing appropriately with staffing vacancies,” the statement notes, adding that it is working with the county health department to ensure proper infection control protocols are followed.
State health records reveal that inspectors found several instances this year in which Westwood Post-Acute did not follow proper infection control protocols in a way that could have potential to transmit and spread COVID-19 infection to residents, staff and visitors.
Specifically, inspectors in August found the facility was not properly documenting information to screen staff and visitors for COVID-19. An earlier inspection in May found a staff member was not wearing her mask properly. And state inspectors in March found a shortage of nursing assistants at night meant that residents were getting only bed baths instead of full showers. While that was not directly related to COVID-19 care, studies have shown that facilities with staffing shortages have struggled to mitigate COVID-19 outbreaks.
At Skyline Healthcare Center, inspectors who visited the facility in May and July found that several staff members were not wearing masks, and that the facility had not properly screened staff members by checking their temperatures upon entering the center.
Skyline’s parent company, Mariner Healthcare, also operates a Hayward nursing home that experienced a large COVID-19 outbreak earlier in the year. The company is facing a pending lawsuit over its staffing shortages that plaintiffs say have resulted in poor care for residents of the facility.
The surge in COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County has also happened at other congregate-living facilities, such as homeless shelters.
While there had been relatively few cases of COVID-19 in Santa Clara County’s unhoused population since March, positive cases have emerged since November. At the Boccardo Reception Center — an emergency shelter in San Jose — 60 cases have been confirmed since Nov. 23, or about half of the 120 unhoused individuals staying there.
County officials say 20 people tested positive on Nov. 23, 26 people tested positive a week later on Nov. 29, and 14 people tested positive this week. The cases include those among four staff members.
Another homeless shelter in San Jose, South Hall, reported a total of seven cases since Nov. 18. That shelter is among the largest in the county.
Dr. George Han, Deputy Health Officer for the county, said county officials are also keeping an eye on that cluster of cases to ensure it “doesn’t turn into an outbreak situation.”
“It’s still not clear at this stage whether those seven cases represent the normal amount of cases that you might expect given how much community transmission of COVID there is or if it represent the beginning of an outbreak, so that’s under active investigation,” Han said about the cluster at South Hall.
What is clear, however, is that as cases in the broader community rise, so, too, do cases at congregate care settings such as homeless shelters and skilled nursing facilities.
“This coincides of course with the extreme rise in cases that we’ve been seeing since the beginning of November,” Han said Thursday. “What happens is as cases rise in the community that also means that more cases get introduced into these congregate settings.”
California is averaging nearly 15,000 new cases per day — the highest number of daily new cases than at any other point in the pandemic. The state’s positivity rate has reached 7.3%, up from 5.3% two weeks ago and 3% at the beginning of November.
The number of hospitalizations statewide has also increased, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to issue a new order that will force additional restrictions in any of the five regions of the state where fewer than 15% of intensive care units remain available. None of the regions — separated into Northern California, the Bay Area, Greater Sacramento, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California — currently meet the threshold but could in a matter of days, Newsom said Thursday.
Staff writer Evan Webeck contributed reporting.
