public health experts and advocates see
potential in combating further infection and
freeing up hospital space, and many relatives
embrace the concept as a way to protect their
loved ones.
Debra Ellis agonizes over whether to bring her
87-year-old wife home if a coronavirus case
appears in her nursing home, which currently
isn’t reporting any. Ellis lives in Meriden,
Connecticut, a state where three of nine planned
nursing homes set aside for recuperating
COVID-19 patients opened this month.
“It’s terrible, the anxiety, you almost feel like
they’re sitting ducks,” Ellis said.
While nursing homes routinely isolate residents
who have an infectious illness, such as the flu,
advocates see the more dramatic idea of setting
aside an entire facility as necessary, given how
easily and fast the coronavirus can spread.
“You can’t stop it. Once it gets in, then it’s going
to run its way through the facility,” said Charlene
Harrington, a professor emeritus of nursing at
the University of California, San Francisco, and
an expert in the risks of transferring elderly
COVID-19 patients.
“So that’s why we want the COVID-only facilities
set up and have the hospitals test patients. And
if they have the virus, send them to the COVID-
only facility,” said Harrington, who would like to
see California set up such homes.
The idea has been introduced in some other
states, including Massachusetts and Utah, but
not on as large a scale as in Connecticut.
It’s too soon for statistics to show whether
keeping hospital-discharged patients in a