September 18, 2020

Dear Residents and Families,

The purpose of this letter is to communicate updates regarding our covid-19 reporting and the actions we continue to take to combat and protect our community.  

In July we were testing all staff weekly for Covid with negative results each week. These results allowed our facility to go to every-other-week testing of all staff in the month of August. These results were also all negative.

Due to the increase in Covid, within the County of York, the facility resumed weekly testing of all staff starting in the month of September.

The first two weeks of all staff testing were all negative.

The week of September 13 results identified one staff member to be positive. The facility was notified by our third party contracted lab yesterday, September 17, of this positive result.

The positive employee is asymptomatic, doing well, and is currently at home in self-quarantine for the next 14 days.

As a result of this positive result we did swab most all residents for Covid yesterday, September 17, and expect to have those results back by Monday, September 21, at the latest.

We did not test 4 residents yesterday because they had tested positive, previously, and are still in the 90-day look-back. We also had four residents refuse to be tested.

If any resident is identified as positive from this round of testing, family will be notified.

Starting the week of September 20, we will continue to swab most all residents in addition to our staff, weekly, until we have 14 days without a new onset of Covid positive results.

Once we achieve no new onset over a 14-day period, we will cease testing residents and continue testing staff on a routine cycle dictated by the Covid activity within the County of York.

In the month of August, the facility began to reach out to families and initiated limited visitation opportunities, outside, weather permitting. This was in addition to the compassionate care visits/end-of-life visits which have and always will be available to our families.

Unfortunately, due to the recent positive Covid result, we must cease what limited outside visitation opportunities we started. Window visits are always welcomed and zoom calls will resume next week.

Once we achieve no new onset of Covid over a consecutive 14-day period, I would like to invite families to call me to schedule an opportunity to visit with your family member. I am hopeful that we will be able to accommodate visitation inside the facility if weather does not permit an outside visit.  

I would like to also ask our community not to use this site to initiate dialog/questions related to any updates. This site is used only to communicate to all of you. If you have any questions or concerns related to this or any other update, please feel free to contact me at 717-633-4520. If you get my voice mail, please leave me a message and I will return your call. Please know I spend most of my time out in the facility and very little time behind my desk.

As of 9/18, since the start of this pandemic, 

• We have had a total of 30 residents test positive with Covid-19. This is an increase of 0 since our last update.

• We also had 9 employees who had tested positive since this pandemic started. This is an increase of 1 since our last update. The previous 8 staff have all resolved.

Of the 30 residents:

 

·         20 Residents recovered. This is an increase of 0 since our last update.

 

·         0 Residents currently in-house with positive Covid results. Our last Covid positive resident was taken off precautions on 7/8. 

 

·         10 Residents expired and who had tested positive for Covid. This is an increase of 0 since our last update.

We have and will continue to test our residents, who show any signs/symptoms. We believe this is in the best interest of our community. We are still very vigilant in our focus to protect and maintain the mitigation that we have achieved.    

In early April, we decided to implement isolation precautions on most all new on-set symptoms, and we will continue to do so. We believe we are still in a time when we cannot be too overly cautious in protecting our community. Resident and staff safety are our top priority.

We continue to exceed our staff levels throughout the facility to meet the needs of our community.

You can be proud of the staff at Hanover Hall and be assured that all our staff continue to report to work and perform with excellence. 

I know this continues to be a difficult time for everyone. We will continue to update you, as quickly as possible, with any updates and/or changes to our current situation.

Please know we continue to strictly adhere to all directives from the local and state health departments as well as the CDC.

We appreciate your continued prayers and trust in the care and services we provide and for your understanding and support of any necessary adjustments as this situation evolves.

Please feel free to contact me at 717-633-4520 with any questions or concerns. 

May God bless us all.

Respectfully,

Daniel Pyle, NHA

Administrator, Hanover Hall