PLEASANT VALLEY, Mo. — Another metro nursing home has become an epicenter of a COVID-19 outbreak, officials say Tuesday.
Health officials in Clay County confirmed Tuesday there are 53 coronavirus cases at the Pleasant Valley Manor Care Center in the Northland.
The concern ramped up on May 28. Pleasant Valley Manor administrator Ladonna Vaughn told FOX4 an employee at the skilled nursing facility called into work, saying she’d tested positive for COVID-19. Vaughn said that’s when leaders here decided to test everyone.
Results came back last Friday, showing 53 positive cases, 19 of whom are employees here. That means 34 of the 80 residents here have tested positive for the virus, according to Vaughn.
Two of those patients have died.
“I didn’t have anyone here who was symptomatic,” Vaughn said.
She said the nursing home has been off limits to visitors since March. Vaughn said her staff is strictly abiding by CDC guidelines to ensure no one else here gets the virus.
“We’re doing everything we can,” Vaughn said. “If we’d have known someone was positive before this happened, they wouldn’t have been here. Unfortunately, people don’t come with a label that says ‘I’m positive today.’”
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid reports the disease has killed 253 residents at Missouri nursing homes.