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WHEELING -- Friends and family are again welcomed to Good Shepherd Nursing Home, after a staff member had tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
Visitation was briefly suspended for several days at the facility after a vaccinated staff member tested positive for the virus last Tuesday. The staff member was sent home and all other staffers and residents tested negative for the rest of the week, leading to visits being allowed once again by Friday.
Administrator Don Kirsch said Monday that the staff member who tested positive is experiencing mild symptoms -- a stuffy nose and loss of taste -- and is expected to be able to return on Aug. 17.
"We're hoping that around or after the 17th ... they'll be back to work with us," he said.
Kirsch went on to say that all staff members are equipped with N95 masks, of which the nursing home had procured more than 40,000. Kirsch expects that the delta variant of the virus may prompt a move to provide some of those masks to visitors to more thoroughly protect staff and residents, the average age of whom is 88, he said.
"Now, visitors are wearing regular procedure masks, but we think that in the near future, that's going to change," Kirsch said. "Because we're around our residents more than visitors are, we're wearing the full-blown N95 masks. ... When the time comes, as soon as we're ready to make that conversion, we're probably going to be asking our family members or friends who come in to visit residents to wear those as well, just for added protection.
"No one knows a lot about the delta variant yet, and its effect on the frail elderly who haven't been vaccinated," he said. "The younger people who've been vaccinated, we've read and heard stories, they fare pretty well. I, and our staff, are just very concerned about our residents with an average age of 88, so we're trying to take every precaution. We know the delta variant's not here yet, but it probably will be, and we're ready for it."