Coronavirus Outbreak At Lochearn Nursing Home Reported

BALTIMORE, MD — An outbreak of the new coronavirus has been reported at a nursing home in northwest Baltimore. Between residents and staff, 170 cases of the virus have reportedly been confirmed at the FutureCare in Lochearn.

Of the cases, 129 were residents and 41 were staff, WBAL reported, noting the FutureCare nursing home outbreak was the largest in the state, prompting Maryland to send a strike team to help.

Gov. Larry Hogan ordered the formation of strike teams last week to assist nursing homes with their response to the virus, after an outbreak at Pleasant View in Mount Airy that resulted in multiple deaths.

Each strike team is made up of members of the National Guard, health departments, EMS clinicians and doctors and nurses from local hospitals. They are to coordinate testing, triage and stabilization at the request of a nursing homes, group homes or health departments.

The first case of the virus at FutureCare in Lochearn was confirmed March 31, prompting testing at the entire facility, leading authorities to find many were infected with the virus but did not have symptoms, WBAL reported.

The outbreak in Baltimore may be the second largest at a nursing home in the country, after Holyoke in Massachusetts, the Baltimore Sun reported.

In that case, at the Soldiers' Home facility in Massachusetts, 36 veterans died after getting COVID-19.