Resident and staff at Rock Hill senior living facility test positive for coronavirus
A resident and staff member at a Rock Hill senior living facility have tested positive for the coronavirus, company officials said.
In a letter sent on April 3, Chandler Place Assisted Living and Memory Care notified residents and family members that a resident in assisted living and a staff member who “only works in assisted living in a non-caregiving role” had contracted COVID-19.
Patricia McCulloh, vice president of operations for Navion Senior Solutions, which operates Chandler Place, confirmed the two cases in an email to The Herald.
The facility has asked all residents to follow a shelter-in-place order for the next 14 days, the letter said. McCulloh said the facility was made aware of the positive cases last week.
“We are in close contact with local and state health officials to ensure we are taking all appropriate steps to safeguard every member of our community, and we informed residents and their families of the positive test as soon as we learned,” McCulloh said in the email.
The resident is not exhibiting symptoms consistent with the coronavirus, the letter said. And the staff member has not worked at the facility in the previous 14 days, the letter said.
The letter said the resident who tested positive has not been out of his or her apartment since all assisted living common areas were cleaned on April 1 by a third-party vendor trained to disinfect for COVID-19.
McCulloh said the facility has limited visitors and implemented mandatory screenings of all staff and professionals who enter the facility.
The letter said, to date, the facility has had no other positive cases.
York County Emergency Management Director Chuck Haynes said that with multiple cases reported statewide at senior living facilities, it was likely that a York County facility would see positive cases reported.
The confirmed cases at Chandler Place are a reminder of the vulnerability of older people and the workers at those places, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health experts have been saying for weeks, Haynes said.
“This has been a concern based on the age group of older residents and their susceptibility to infection,” Haynes said. “We had hoped that this would not happen here in York County, but we knew it was a possibility.”
Other York County agencies have disclosed when employees test positive for the coronavirus.
On Sunday, Chief of the Clover Police Department Randy Grice confirmed that an officer tested positive for the virus. The officer is quarartined at home, Grice said. York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson confirmed on Friday an employee with the agency tested positive and is one of five employees quarantined.
As of Monday morning, York County has 85 reported cases of the virus and two people in York County have died after contracting the coronavirus, according to DHEC.
This story was originally published April 6, 2020 at 11:56 AM.
