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Metro Health Director Dawn Emerick addresses reporters at a news conference about COVID-19.
Confirming that 39 more residents and staff members at local nursing homes have tested positive for COVID-19, San Antonio health officials now say they will release daily data on testing at local care facilities.
Recent tests show 23 infections among residents and another 16 among staff at four San Antonio facilities: Advanced Rehab Live Oak, Rio at Mission Trails, Pecan Valley Nursing Home and Legend Oaks West.
Those numbers do not include cases already reported at Southeast Nursing & Rehabilitation Center and Buena Vida Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, both of which were sites of earlier outbreaks. No new cases have been detected at either of those locations for more than 14 days, San Antonio Metro Health officials said.
Residents at nursing homes who have tested positive for COVID-19 have since been relocated to River City Care Center, a facility east of downtown which is providing isolation and treatment for those who test positive.
“All COVID-19-positive nursing home residents have been transferred to the River City Care Center facility to allow them to recover in isolation from other residents, or if necessary, to a hospital for treatment," said Dr. Dawn Emerick, director of Metro Health. "There are no known positive residents or staff that are currently at these facilities — they’ve all been moved.”
On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott announced he'd ordered universal testing at nursing homes across the state. San Antonio's Metro Health Department had already been testing residents and staff at facilities where cases had been reported.
So far, more than 300 COVID-19 deaths have been confirmed at long-term care facilities. That number accounts for roughly 40% of the state’s total coronavirus deaths, according to an
investigation by the Texas Tribune.
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