Florida National Guard To Investigate Facilities

From the Florida Phoenix: By Michael Moline - April 15, 2020

State government will mobilize the Florida National Guard to expand screening of staff and residents in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities for COVID-19, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday.

Plans call for 10 teams of four health specialists initially targeting hard-hit counties in Southeast Florida, building on existing screening within these facilities, the governor announced during a news conference in the state Capitol.

The idea is to identify cases affecting people who don’t exhibit symptoms of the disease.

“People do carry this virus without a fever, without being symptomatic. And so you need to have a strike team going in and aggressively testing to try to preempt that,” DeSantis said.

“What we found in a lot of these long-term facilities is that the spread is more significant among the staff. But it’s not that they weren’t following the protocols; in some cases they were. It’s just somebody didn’t show symptoms.”

DeSantis argued that Florida was early in protecting seniors living in group settings from exposure to the new coronavirus, banning visitors and allowing in only staff and residents, and advising everyone over age 65 to stay home.

Additionally, the state has mobilized 125 assessment teams to visit nearly 4,000 nursing homes and long-term care facilities thus far and recommend safety steps; they have made more 1,000 visits and more than 5,000 telephone calls to facilities.

That hasn’t prevented residents from exposure, although state officials have not identified the facilities affected.

Officials had already set up rapid emergency response teams to intervene when facilities reported infections. Ninety-three facilities have been assessed, DeSantis said. And officials have conducted sentinel testing in facilities regardless of whether residents have contracted COVID-19, to gain a better idea of the extent of transmission.

Florida’s infection rate per 100,000 people remains relatively low, behind Texas and California, the governor said, even though Florida has been testing more broadly per capita, the governor said, and the death rate also lags.

This story was originally published by the Florida Phoenix. For more stories from the Florida Phoenix, visit FloridaPhoenix.com.