Dear Family and Friends of South Cove Manor:
When I last wrote to all of you, we had marked one full month without identifying any new positive cases of COVID-19 in our staff or residents. I am pleased to report that trend has continued, and we are now close to six weeks removed from our last positive case.
In addition to this positive news, I am pleased to report that over the next week, we are planning to make several operational changes as a result of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health modifying some of their guidance related to the COVID pandemic:
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Indoor Group activities: will once again be offered to our residents beginning next week. Residents that are in isolation for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 status, or quarantined due to exposure or new admission can participate in the indoor group activities can NOT participate in indoor activities, but all other residents will be allowed to participate. All residents will be required to wear a face covering, and those that are not fully vaccinated will need to remain 6 feet apart during these activities. We have already begun to offer some group activities, with plans to gradually increase the number and types of activities over the next several weeks.
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Communal Dining: Residents that are fully vaccinated may dine together at a dining table without social distancing. Those residents that are not yet fully vaccinated will be required to enjoy their meals at an individual table, and remain 6 feet apart from other residents.
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Visitation: We will be offering visitation opportunities on our nursing floors beginning on Monday, March 29th. These visits will no longer need to be scheduled, but will be limited to 45 minutes at a time, and visitors will still need to go through our COVID screening process. We will be able to accommodate 3 simultaneous visits per floor, so there is a possibility that visitors may be required to wait for a brief period of time for a visitation station to become available. As I’m sure you can imagine, a change of this magnitude involves a lot of planning on our end. I will be providing you all with a much more detailed plan for our new visitation system next week, but wanted to alert you all to this upcoming significant, positive change.
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Staff Surveillance testing: Beginning today, March 19th, we are required to continue to test our non-vaccinated staff members for COVID-19 on a weekly basis, but our fully vaccinated staff members will now be tested every other week.
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Quarantines: Any new admissions or current residents that are returning from a hospital stay, are no longer required to quarantine if they are fully vaccinated.
As you can see, many of these changes revolve around resident and staff vaccination status. We completely respect people’s decisions to not receive the vaccine, but also understand that these operational changes may change your minds about the vaccine. Please feel free to reach out to Li Chen or I if you would like to discuss vaccination opportunities for your loved ones.
We are all excited about these incremental steps forward. However, as we have since the beginning of this pandemic, South Cove will continue to keep our residents and staff members safety a priority. We are all eager to see a return to a more normal environment for everyone, and are looking forward to working with all of you as we implement these much-needed changes.
Thank you again for placing your trust in South Cove Manor.
