NEWBERG, Ore. — Operators of a Newberg senior living facility that became home to one of Oregon’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks say they do not know how the coronavirus entered the facility and infected 11 people.
In a statement issued Monday, Astor House at Springbrook Oaks said six of its residents have died from the coronavirus, and five more have tested positive. The residents who died all had underlying health conditions, according to the statement, issued jointly with Yamhill County’s public health department.
The outbreak is likely linked to all of the county’s COVID-19 deaths. State public health officials have said one woman and five men died from the virus in Yamhill County between March 27 and April 8.
Jacade Ross, regional director of operations for Astor House parent company Holiday Retirement, said it’s been difficult to pin down how the outbreak happened at Astor House.
Astor House, which has more than 100 residents, is an independent living community which does not provide medical care for its residents. People living there are free to come and go at will. Ross said employees can’t force them to stay inside, but can advise them to follow the state’s quarantine guidelines. He said residents have taken the statewide guidelines seriously.
Lindsey Manfrin, the public health administrator for Yamhill County Health and Human Services, said she could not comment about the specific steps her department took to address the outbreak at Astor House.
In general, she said, county workers respond to a facility as soon as there is a single suspected case. She said they determine the course of an outbreak by keeping track of the suspected patient’s symptoms, narrows down a time frame for when the person could have contracted the virus, and tests people “when applicable.” She said they also provide the facility with information about how to limit the spread of the disease, such as isolating sick people, limiting visitors and closing common areas.
The five residents who tested positive for the coronavirus at Astor House are quarantined inside their apartments within the facility, the company’s statement said.
Some other residents and employees who have shown symptoms have been tested, but those tests have all come back negative, Ross said.
According to its statement, Astor House has imposed several precautions, including deep cleaning high-traffic areas, barring non-essential visitors, screening the health of essential visitors and delivering no-contact meals to residents.
Astor House disclosed the details after the Oregon Department of Human Services confirmed an outbreak of cases at that facility and eight other senior living or long-term facilities with five or more coronavirus cases. State officials did not reveal that information until Saturday, despite multiple requests from The Oregonian/OregonLive in prior weeks.
Of the nine confirmed outbreaks, Astor House is on the lower end for the total cases, with 11. But it has the second-highest number of deaths among those facilities. At Foster Creek in Southeast Portland, 10 of the 35 people that have tested positive have died.
—Jayati Ramakrishnan
This article was originally published by The Oregonian/Oregonlive, one of more than a dozen news organizations throughout the state sharing their coverage of the novel coronavirus outbreak to help inform Oregonians about this evolving health issue.
