Whatcom Health monitors COVID outbreak in which 21 residents, employees test positive
Public health officials are continuing to monitor a COVID-19 outbreak at Avamere Bellingham Healthcare and Rehabilitation where 21 employees and residents have tested positive for COVID-19 as of the most recent information on Tuesday, May 11.
The number of confirmed cases is up two since the first report of the outbreak on May 8.
No additional information on case counts has been released since Tuesday.
A total of 14 residents and six employees have tested positive for COVID-19, according to information that Avamere’s parent company provided to The Bellingham Herald when the number of cases was at 20.
The Herald has asked Avamere whether the additional confirmed case was a resident or an employee.
The number of people hospitalized remained at two and deaths remained at one — a man in his 80s, who was diagnosed with COVID-19, the Whatcom County Health Department said Tuesday.
Officials are waiting for death certificate information, which will verify whether the man’s cause of death was COVID-19, the health department said in a previous Herald article.
The Whatcom County Health Department has been responding to the outbreak in coordination with the skilled nursing facility since being notified of a confirmed case associated with Avamere on April 24
The Bellingham site at 1200 Birchwood Ave. has restricted visitations since April 25 because of the outbreak, according to information from Avamere Family of Companies.
Six of the confirmed cases were among people who were fully vaccinated, which are known as breakthrough cases. That means they tested positive for COVID-19 two weeks or more after they received a full course of a COVID-19 vaccine — one or two shots, depending on which one they received.
The Whatcom Health Department provided the number of breakthrough cases on Saturday, May 8, when the number of confirmed COVID cases totaled 19.
But the health department isn’t providing an ongoing tally of breakthrough cases because “we need to be very careful not to disclose any information that could lead to identifying protected health information, including which individuals are vaccinated or not vaccinated,” department spokesperson Melissa Morin told The Herald.
Officials can share the vaccination information once the outbreak is over, Morin said.
Public health officials have said that while the vaccines are effective against COVID-19, no vaccine is 100% effective, adding that breakthrough cases are rare.
In a Department of Health briefing with reporters on Wednesday, May 12, Dr. Scott Lindquist, the acting state health officer, spoke about the breakthrough cases in Whatcom County and Washington.
“We are not having an unexpected number of breakthrough cases at this point,” Lindquist said. “We are not seeing disturbing trends. We are seeing what is expected in breakthrough with the vaccine efficacy that we have currently.”
Avamere vaccination rates
The Bellingham skilled nursing home has 59 residents and 103 workers, Avamere Family of Companies told The Herald.
Dr. Elizabeth Burns, chief medical officer for Avamere Family of Companies, and Carl Tabor, division president for Avamere Living-Skilled Nursing, provided information in a prepared statement in response to questions from The Herald.
As of Monday, May 10, 60% of the Bellingham facility’s residents are vaccinated, and Avamere continues to vaccinate more seniors newly admitted to the facility, officials said.
“This continues to be an evolving target given discharges and new admission,” Avamere said of vaccinations. “As we welcome new staff and residents, they may or may not be previously vaccinated. As we continue to hold more vaccine clinics through the long-term care pharmacy partnership, more of our staff and residents will become vaccinated.”
As for its staff, 60% have been vaccinated, according to Avamere.
Avamere doesn’t require its employees to get a COVID-19 vaccination.
“There is currently not a vaccine mandate in place; it is a complex decision that Avamere takes seriously,” the company told the Herald.
The company has been providing information about the vaccines to residents and workers via virtual employee town halls, Q&A sessions and videos, Avamere said.
“Early, frequent and transparent information is the key to success for making an informed decision. With the amount of misinformation and influence of social media, having targeted evidence-based conversations, meeting people where they’re at from a place of empathy has been a focus of the organization,” Avamere said.
Convincing workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 continues to be a national focus with an April story from Pew Charitable Trusts indicating that such vaccinations are lagging — about half of workers at long-term care facilities had been vaccinated — as organizations work to answer employees’ questions and address their concerns, including about safety.
Moving forward, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Tuesday announced that it will require long-term care facilities to report the COVID-19 vaccination status of residents and staff each week to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That is expected to start in two weeks, according to a Tuesday story by The Hill.
The state Department of Health doesn’t track vaccination data at long-term care facilities.
Vaccination mandates?
Washington state doesn’t have a COVID-19 vaccination mandate, but employers may choose to require it, said Shelby Anderson, spokesperson with the Department of Health.
Nolan Davidson, a Bellingham employment attorney who will teach at Western Washington University starting in the fall, said COVID-19 vaccination can be a requirement of employment in most instances.
“The short answer is yes, with a few important exceptions,” he said.
“Washington follows the ‘at will’ employment doctrine, which basically means that employment can be terminated by either the employer or employee at any time for any lawful reason. So, theoretically, an employer can require employees to be vaccinated as a condition for employment, and if an employee refused to get vaccinated, they could be terminated,” he explained.
Davidson said there were primary exceptions for certain groups:
▪ People who have disabilities that prevent them from getting vaccinated, who are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
▪ People with “sincere religious reasons” for not getting vaccinated, who are protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
“In these specific scenarios, an employer might need to make an exception to their policy. However, an employer does not need to make an exception from their vaccination requirement if doing so would constitute an ‘undue hardship,’ ” Davidson said.
Union employees are another exception, he said.
“An employer with a unionized workforce wouldn’t be able to implement a vaccination requirement without negotiating that proposal with the union first,” Davidson said.
Health monitoring
The Whatcom County Health Department continues to keep an eye on the outbreak.
“Outbreaks are monitored for a full 28 days after the last positive COVID-19 test result. If there are no new confirmed cases in that time period, the outbreak is considered to be over,” the Whatcom County Health Department explained to the Herald.
The Whatcom County Health Department said its role will remain the same until the outbreak has ended:
▪ Coordinate and develop testing plans, including establishing a regular testing schedule.
▪ Cohorting, or grouping, strategies for residents who test positive for COVID-19 and residents who are quarantined. Quarantining involves keeping someone who may have been exposed to the virus away from others.
▪ Site visit with the state Department of Health to assess infection control and identify changes to improve infection prevention.
▪ Checking in each day with Avamere about staff and residents who have symptoms.
▪ Help with requests for resources, such as PPE and staffing, if needed.
Long-term care update
Whatcom County had nine new cases but no new related deaths associated with its long-term care facilities last week, according to the Washington State Department of Health’s latest COVID-19 Long-Term Care Report.
According to the report, which was released Tuesday and reflected data through Monday, May 10, long-term care facilities in Whatcom have had 372 confirmed cases during the pandemic.
The number of COVID-related deaths in Whatcom’s long-term care facilities remained at 46, according to the state’s data.
The 372 cases mean that long-term care facilities had 4.4% of the 8,476 total cases reported in Whatcom County by Monday, while the 46 related deaths represent 50% of the county’s death total (92) at the time.
Statewide, long-term care facilities have been associated with 20,260 cases (5% of the state’s total cases) and 2,674 related deaths (48% of the state’s death total).
As of April, COVID-19 cases and deaths among employees and residents at long-term care facilities have dropped by nearly 92% and 89% respectively across much of the country. That’s since vaccinations began in December, according to an analysis by KFF, an independent nonprofit that focuses on national health issues.
