Health & Fitness
MA Coronavirus Study: Symptom-Free Patients Infected Nursing Homes
Mounting data suggests staff and residents infected with the virus but asymptomatic helped spread the disease in long-term care facilities.
WORCESTER — Mounting data suggests that nursing home staff and residents who were infected with the new coronavirus but displayed no symptoms allowed COVID-19 to tear through long-term homes across the country.
In a survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that more than half of asymptomatic residents tested at an unidentified nursing home were positive for the virus and “most likely contributed to transmission.”
An antibody test of staff at the Beaumont Nursing Home in Worcester, which was converted to a facility for recovering COVID-19 patients, found that 20 percent of staff likely had a mild case of the virus and had developed an immune response to it.
