Hello Village at Marymount Family, Friends, and Staff. This is Sue Nall the Executive Director.
Today’s testing yielded another positive case. This person was part of clinicals here and had very little contact with any of the residents. We conducted testing only of our Continuing Care Unit staff and patients according to the new contact tracing testing guidelines.
Our COVID update since March 2020: Villa St. Joseph has 1 Active Staff and Resident Cases. We have a total of 112 resident and staff cases. Memory Care Assisted Living at Villa St Joseph has 0 Resident or Staff cases and a cumulative total of 2 cases. Marymount Place has 0 Active Resident or Staff cases — and a cumulative total of 15 resident/staff cases.
At this point only staff and residents on CCU will be testing as part of this outbreak. Unvaccinated staff throughout the campus must test twice weekly and vaccinated staff on CCU need to test weekly. If you are still in the process of getting fully vaccinated, then you must test twice weekly. You’re not fully vaccinated until two weeks after your last dose.
I’m happy to report that close to 90% of our staff has received at least one dose of the vaccine or is fully vaccinated! Many have also received their boosters already! This is a tremendous accomplishment and testament to our staff. We’re making progress in that area.
You may have heard about the Omicron coronavirus variant. The FDA is trying to learn more about this variant as it is prevalent in South Africa, which has a low vaccination rate.
Omicron doesn’t appear to cause a lot of symptoms. The primary concern is that the variant is highly transmissible. The FDA also encourages Americans to get vaccine and booster shots as soon as possible.
As I mentioned last week, we are amid the holiday season. I urge you to take additional precautions to keep yourself and your loved ones safe and healthy at this time of the year. We continue to see increased numbers and hear about some very sick unvaccinated individuals in the hospital. Continue to be vigilant with practicing those all-important “three W’s” – wash your hands, watch your distance, and wear a mask.