Santa Cruz County health leaders confirmed Tuesday there was a COVID-19 outbreak at the Driftwood HealthCare center in Santa Cruz over the weekend, but the facility quickly activated infection control measures.“Which means accelerated or increased amount of testing that’s done every week on both residents and employees. The other thing they do is hold any new admissions until they have at least one round of negative tests,” said Dr. David Ghilarducci, deputy health officer for Santa Cruz County.Three employees initially tested positive; two of them had a rapid test but a lab test on both eventually came back negative. However, all three are on a 10-day quarantine. County health leaders said no residents have tested positive for COVID-19.Health officials said the infection control measures implemented last year when nursing homes were a hotbed for COVID-19 outbreaks seem to be paying off.“Knock on wood still pretty lucky that we have not seen the kinds of outbreaks, illness and hospitalizations in our skilled nursing facilities this is entirely due to the vaccinations they’ve undergone,” Dr. Ghilarducci said.But the delta variant continues to pose a huge concern, it’s highly contagious, making it hard to trace back the source of every infection including at the Driftwood Healthcare center.“So most of our cases are listed as community transmission and it’s going to be hard for our contact tracers to keep up and actually identify how everybody got COVID and where it’s coming from,” said Jason Hoppin, spokesman for Santa Cruz County.Directors at Driftwood Healthcare say they have suspended all in-house visitation until further notice from county health leaders.
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. —
Santa Cruz County health leaders confirmed Tuesday there was a COVID-19 outbreak at the Driftwood HealthCare center in Santa Cruz over the weekend, but the facility quickly activated infection control measures.
“Which means accelerated or increased amount of testing that’s done every week on both residents and employees. The other thing they do is hold any new admissions until they have at least one round of negative tests,” said Dr. David Ghilarducci, deputy health officer for Santa Cruz County.
Three employees initially tested positive; two of them had a rapid test but a lab test on both eventually came back negative. However, all three are on a 10-day quarantine. County health leaders said no residents have tested positive for COVID-19.
Health officials said the infection control measures implemented last year when nursing homes were a hotbed for COVID-19 outbreaks seem to be paying off.
“Knock on wood still pretty lucky that we have not seen the kinds of outbreaks, illness and hospitalizations in our skilled nursing facilities this is entirely due to the vaccinations they’ve undergone,” Dr. Ghilarducci said.
But the delta variant continues to pose a huge concern, it’s highly contagious, making it hard to trace back the source of every infection including at the Driftwood Healthcare center.
“So most of our cases are listed as community transmission and it’s going to be hard for our contact tracers to keep up and actually identify how everybody got COVID and where it’s coming from,” said Jason Hoppin, spokesman for Santa Cruz County.
Directors at Driftwood Healthcare say they have suspended all in-house visitation until further notice from county health leaders.