10/19/2021 Update: Lyngblomsten grateful for more than 90 percent of care center employees vaccinated and new approach for testing
October 19, 2021
Over the last several weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have continued to rise in Minnesota. Here at Lyngblomsten, we’re grateful to have had only a handful of new positive cases—three in care center residents and four in employees—since early September. Still, we know the COVID landscape could change quickly, which is why we’re remaining vigilant in doing all we can to keep our residents, tenants, employees, and campus visitors healthy and safe. Hand washing, PPE donning, and social distancing continue to be part of our daily routines, along with testing protocols that are designed to help quickly identify persons who have the virus.
Below are additional items to note since our last web update on September 3, 2021:
Care center employee vaccination rate tops 90 percent
- Currently, 90.4 percent of Lyngblomsten Care Center employees are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. We’re very grateful to have reached this milestone, as it’s an important part of our strategy for keeping our campus community safe.
Contact-tracing approach for testing instituted
- Per new guidelines from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), Lyngblomsten has enacted a contact-tracing approach for testing when a new case of COVID is identified in a resident, tenant, or employee.
- Contact tracing is the process of determining whom a COVID-positive individual had contact with (residents, tenants, and staff) during their contagious period. So, a contact-tracing approach for testing means: When we’re able to determine quickly who was exposed to a positive person, we only need to test the persons who were exposed.
- Practically, this means we no longer need to test all our residents, tenants, and staff whenever we identify a new case. Rather, we can focus our testing to those who were exposed to the virus. (Per the MDH guidelines, there are still some instances in which we would test all residents, tenants, and/or employees for the virus after identifying a new case.)
- This new approach also means we do not need to temporarily pause indoor** visits for all our residents and tenants whenever we identify a new case. Instead, we can pause indoor visits for those who test positive and those who were exposed to the virus. We’re very grateful for this development, as it means a good number of our residents and tenants will be able to continue in-person visits with their family, friends, and loved ones if/when new cases are identified.
- **Lyngblomsten has been temporarily pausing indoor visits with non–Essential Caregivers whenever we’ve identified a new case of the virus. Other types of indoor visits—including Essential Caregiver visits, indoor chapel visits, and compassionate care visits—have been able to occur when new cases have been identified.
Updates made to Lyngblomsten’s cumulative COVID-19 data
- Each week, we share with our residents and their families Lyngblomsten’s cumulative number of COVID-19 cases and deaths since we first started testing residents on April 1, 2020.
- This fall, we adjusted our cumulative number of care center resident cases to 155 (up from 154) and cumulative number of resident deaths to 55 (up from 52). We informed our residents and their families of these changes after checking data reported by the Minnesota Department of Health for senior care facilities in the state. (This data is updated every Thursday on MDH’s website.)
- Regarding the increase in the number of resident deaths due to COVID, the discrepancy between our number and MDH’s is likely due to MDH adding to its list deceased residents who have COVID-19 listed somewhere on their death certificate (i.e., primary, secondary, or contributing cause of death), even though we determined these individuals had recovered from the virus using the latest clinical guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
We’ve learned that our response to the COVID-19 pandemic is more of a marathon and less of a sprint. While we don’t know what the next months will bring, we’re confident that our experiences have prepared us well to face whatever challenges may arise with ingenuity, determination, and courage.
