Nursing home staff spread coronavirus to other facilities, CDC investigation finds

Healthcare workers load a patient into an ambulance at Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash. Six people in the state have died from the coronavirus. (Getty Images)

Staff members at the Seattle-area nursing home overrun by COVID-19 spread the coronavirus to other facilities where they worked, an investigation led by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found.

The report published Wednesday said that as of March 9, the CDC confirmed 129 COVID-19 cases among people linked to Life Care Center of Kirkland. These comprise 81 residents, 34 staff members and 14 visitors.

Separately Wednesday, public health officials reported five more deaths associated with the facility, bringing the total number who have died to 35.

"Limitations in effective infection control and prevention and staff members working in multiple facilities contributed to intra- and interfacility spread," the CDC report said.

The report urged other such facilities nationally to immediately work to prevent coronavirus outbreaks.

"Long-term care facilities should take proactive steps to protect the health of residents and preserve the health care workforce by identifying and excluding potentially infected staff members and visitors, ensuring early recognition of potentially infected patients, and implementing appropriate infection control measures," it said.

The advanced age of many long-term care facility residents, their underlying health conditions and their proximity to one another put them at risk for sickness and death, the report said.

"Substantial morbidity and mortality might be averted if all long-term care facilities take steps now to prevent exposure of their residents to COVID-19," the report said.

Representatives of Life Care Center of Kirkland and its parent company, Life Care Centers of America, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The CDC conducted the investigation with the Seattle & King County Public Health agency and EvergreenHealth, the medical center that treated most of the patients hospitalized from the nursing home.

The investigation found that infected healthcare workers at the Kirkland, Wash., nursing home had a broad range of occupations: doctor, nurse, nursing assistant, physical therapist, occupational therapist assistant, environmental care worker, health information officer and case manager.

Once the outbreak was discovered, investigators emailed about 100 long-term care facilities in King County to check for other clusters of the disease and visited nursing homes with suspected outbreaks to conduct emergency tests for the virus, the report said.

"As of March 9, at least eight other King County skilled nursing and assisted living facilities had reported one or more confirmed COVID-19 cases," the report said.

Several conditions probably made these facilities vulnerable, the investigation found.

Staff members worked in more than one facility. Staffers worked while symptomatic. Workers weren't familiar with standard precautions concerning droplets from patients, surface contacts and eye protection. Facilities had inadequate supplies of personal protective equipment and other items such as alcohol-based hand sanitizer. And supplies of test kits were limited.

"These findings demonstrate that outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities can have critical impact on vulnerable older adults," the report said.

"The findings in this report suggest that once COVID-19 has been introduced into a long-term care facility, it has the potential to result in high attack rates among residents, staff members and visitors."

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Nursing home staff spread coronavirus to other facilities, CDC investigation finds