PITTSBORO — Chatham County government officials said in a press briefing Tuesday that the amount of positive COVID-19 tests at the Laurels of Chatham long-term senior care facility in Pittsboro was not surprising, and that the health department is in constant contact with the center.
The briefing came a couple hours after the first COVID-19-related death in Chatham County was announced — a resident at the Laurels of Chatham long-term senior care facility, located in Pittsboro. As of Tuesday, 57 individuals that were either residents of staff at Laurels had tested positive for COVID-19.
"We were at a very fortunate position where UNC Health Care put staff forward to do the comprehensive testing that we simply didn’t have the capacity to do with the test kits that we had at hand," said Chatham County Public Health Director Layton Long. "It was not a surprise that the number was as large as it was as the results were coming in. We would not have had that number if they had not done the comprehensive testing."
Long said the county had been in regular contact with the facility since the first case was discovered at Laruels and had conversations about personal protective equipment (PPE). He said the facility currently had "adequate PPE" — the county's emergency management department took some there on Monday — and that "there should not be any issue with supply as far as the equipment they need to conduct operations."
Raleigh-based news station WRAL ran reports Monday on alleged "unsafe conditions" at the facility — at least one employee speaking anonymously said that Laurels did not have enough PPE and were short on staff, leading to some employees who had tested positive continuing to work.
Long said CDC guidance allows senior care facility workers who test positive but are asyptomatic the option to work with residents who tested positive. Additionally, an environmental health inspector with Chatham County visited the facility on March 4 — five days after the facility put procedures in place to help curb COVID-19 — and gave it a score of 99.5.
"We’ve done everything that we can in terms of the prevention side," Long said. "Once you introduce something that has an infection rate like this virus into such a tight living space, then it becomes almost insurmountable to get a good handle on controlling this spread. Let’s try to prevent it from getting into the facility in the beginning and things become much easier to manage."
Steve Newton, the county's emergency management director, said the department had submitted a request for additional volunteer nurses for the facility to the state and had received two to help with the staffing shortage at Laurels.
"It will continue to be a challenge across the industry," Newton said. "It’s not a Chatham County problems, it’s a state problem."
Reporter Zachary Horner can be reached at zhorner@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @ZachHornerCNR.