Farmington Presbyterian Manor reports on COVID-19 testing

Three direct resident care employees have tested positive for COVID-19 at Farmington Presbyterian Manor.

We tested 139 employees on Tuesday, September 15, as part of ongoing surveillance testing and 112 residents on Thursday, September 17, at the direction of the St. Francois County Health Department. The September 15 testing resulted in two positive cases. The third case resulted from an employee not feeling well and seeking a test. These positive cases bring our 7-day total to 4 employees.

The St. Francois County Health Department has been notified. Per their recommendation, we will be re-testing residents early this week. Residents will be tested weekly until the campus goes 14 days without a positive test result. We will continue with employee surveillance testing as required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Surveillance testing requires all employees, agency employees, volunteers, hospice, lab and therapy providers at our campus to be tested on a frequency determined by our county’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate. Based on our county positivity rate for COVID-19 tests, our campus is testing employees twice a week.

Families were notified by telephone of the positive results. The employees who tested positive are recovering outside of the community.

“We will continue to keep the safety of our residents and employees top of mind,” said Jane Hull, executive director.

All employees who test positive will remain in isolation until cleared to return to work by the St. Francois County Health Department. Under the current CDC guidelines, symptomatic employees may return to work when at least 24 hours have passed since resolution of the employee’s fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and the employee’s symptoms  have improved and at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. Asymptomatic positive employees will quarantine for 14 days. Upon the employee’s return to work, we will follow CDC recommendations related to work practices and restrictions.

Farmington Presbyterian Manor continues to screen all employees as they enter the community building for a shift and before they have any direct contact with residents.  In addition, staff members are wearing masks per CDC recommendations.

For more information about Farmington Presbyterian Manor’s response, go to PMMA’s (Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America’s) website, presbyterianmanors.org/media-room.