Georgia reports almost 300 COVID-19 cases in Middle Georgia long-term care facilities

The Georgia Department of Health released a report detailing the COVID-19 numbers for licensed nursing homes, assisted living communities and personal care homes of 25 beds or more.

Georgia long-term care facilities have a total of 4,210 residents who have tested positive for the coronavirus, 1,862 staff members who have tested positive and 672 resident deaths. Since April 21, the number of cases in residents has doubled with over 2,000 additional cases. The number of deaths has also risen by over 375 and the number of staff members has risen by nearly 1,000.

In Middle Georgia, 297 residents and staff have tested positive, and 26 have died from the new coronavirus. Long-term care facilities provided the data to the Georgia Department of Community Health. Different state reports can vary, depending on when information is made publicly available, according to the report.

‘Aggressive testing’

Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have been one of the hotspots for COVID-19 across Georgia and the United States. The CDC notes that nursing home populations are at the highest risk of COVID-19 infections, since residents are typically older and have underlying medical conditions.

Gov. Brian Kemp said during his Tuesday afternoon press conference that the Trump administration has encouraged states to test all nursing home personnel and residents. While the state can’t force nursing home companies to allow testing, Kemp said Georgia nursing homes have been willing to work with the state.

“The White House issued a call to action encouraging states to aggressively test nursing home residents and personnel over the next two weeks,” he said. “Thankfully, we’ve been doing a lot of that here in Georgia for several weeks, compliments of the Georgia National Guard. As of today, they have tested 46% of nursing home residents and 24% of the staff. We estimate there are still 46,000 people who need to be tested.”

Kemp said increased testing in nursing homes may result in a “spike” in Georgia numbers.

“You may see a spike in our case numbers, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve got a new hotspot,” he said. “We’re testing a vulnerable population, and we want to know if they’re positive and help take care of that problem, stop the spread and get resources to that community.”

Middle Georgia hotspots

Two weeks ago, The Telegraph reported dozens of cases at Pruitt Health Macon, located at 2255 Anthony Road. At the time, Pruitt Health Macon had 72 residents and 20 staff test positive and six reported COVID-19 related deaths.

According to the state data released Monday, that facility had 72 cumulative resident cases, 27 staff cases and five total deaths, which means one death was removed from the report. The state has not reported how many individuals have recovered from the coronavirus. According to Pruitt Health, 15 residents have recovered. Pruitt Health reports 68 total resident cases.

Antebellum Arlington Place in Macon has 38 total COVID-19 cases and three deaths, according to DPH. Multiple calls to the company that runs Antebellum, Senior Solutions Management Group, were not returned by press time.

Bostick Nursing Center in Milledgeville has 75 cumulative cases. Bostick serves aged and infirmed former inmates, as well as patients with mental illness and behavioral health issues.

Middle Georgia long-term care facilities by the numbers:

This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 5:00 AM.