Fifty-nine additional residents at San Antonio nursing home test positive for COVID-19

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) – Mayor Ron Nirenberg reports that an additional 59 residents at Southeast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center have tested positive for COVID-19.  That’s in addition to more than a dozen positive cases among residents and employees reported Wednesday evening. One of the residents, a man in his 80s, died at a hospital.

“It’s devastating,” said Nirenberg.

He said 11 tests came back negative and two were inconclusive.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff has received calls from area residents who wonder if they should take their loved ones home.   He said if they have tested positive for the coronavirus, they should remain at the facility where they’ll receive treatment, and if necessary, be transported to a hospital.

Wolff said if the resident does not have COVID-19, they can be taken home, but  families should be ready to deal with the possibility that their loved one could become ill at home.

“If they’re not positive, then they could take them home, they can bring them out to the car,” said  Wolff, “but you must be ready  to handle it in case they do turn positive because of the fourteen-day incubation.”

The facility had a low rating in a federal government report–1 star out of a possible five.  Nirenberg says they’ve identified 48 facilities that received a one, two or three-star rating.  He says they’re making a “large number of frequent visits to those nursing homes.

At the start of the Thursday evening briefing, Nirenberg announced that there were 254 coronavirus cases in San Antonio and Bexar County, but that figure did not include the 59 COVID-19 cases at Southeast Nursing and Rehabilitation.

Seventy-five of the cases are travel-related and 82 are community spread, which means the source of the infection is unknown. This is the first time the community transmission cases outnumber the travel-related numbers.

The total number of COVID-related deaths remains unchanged at 9.

 

 

 

 

 

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