Manhawkin Senior Care Center Experiences Outbreak Of COVID Cases

MANAHAWKIN, NJ — A Manahawkin senior care facility has experienced an outbreak of new positive coronavirus cases over the past two weeks as nine people have tested positive, which is the first confirmed case among residents there since the start of the pandemic, officials confirmed on Monday.

In an email to community members at The Residence At Stafford obtained by Patch, executive director Farryn Harte wrote that two recent cases within the facility have been reported recently, which took the number of cases to seven. A spokesman for the facility told Patch on Monday that two more people tested positive for COVID-19 late Sunday night, taking the total number of cases at th facility to nine.

The outbreak involves six residents and three staff members, the spokesman said. The recent rash of cases comes after only one case among residents had been reported at the 80-resident facility since March 2020. The spokesman said that before the recent cases, four staff members have tested positive over the first eight months of 2021.

LCB Senior Living took over ownership of the facility on Dec. 31, 2020 and has since instituted a mandate that all employees be vaccinated, the spokesman said Monday.

The facility, which is located at 1275 Route 72 West, had been allowing visitors, but is no longer doing so and will continue to monitor when it may be safe to allow outside people from coming in, Ted Doyle, vice president of marketing and communications for LCB Senior Living said. All staff members at the facility and all but one resident at the Manahawkin location have been vaccinated, Doyle said.

All but one person who has tested positive is asymptomatic and the other person is experiencing mild symptoms, Doyle said. In her letter to community members, Harte said that all residents and associates would be tested again within 72 hours. All staff members are tested on a daily basis, Doyle said.

Doyle said it is difficult to pinpoint what led to the new batch of confirmed cases.

“Obviously, the (delta) variant got into the building and it’s the nature of the beast unfortunately,” Doyle told Patch on Monday. “We’re not housing our associates and they’re coming and going and living their lives the best they can just as all of are. It’s impossible to keep a microbe that can stick to the bottom of your shoe out of any place.

“But this is a perfect example of why the vaccine is so important to our folks.”

The delta variant has proven several times more contagious than the original COVID-19 strain and so the fact it has been shared is not surprising to officials from the facility, Doyle said. Those who have been identified as anyone who has come into contact with a positive case has been asked to isolate themselves from the rest of the community.

Doyle said that the facility continues to monitor the situation as it evolves and said that it is too early to determine when the care center can reopen to the public. He said that officials there have been “extra-cautious” as they have been since the start of the pandemic. Hospice visits and compassionate care visits will continue but Doyle said that the facility will continue to operate under the “close early, open late” strategy it is used since the start of the pandemic.

“We’re obviously taking nothing for granted,” he said. “We already had a lot of protocols in place to contain and prevent spread of virus. This (delta variant) happened to be a heavyweight and something that had its own contagious nature and so that’s additional challenge we all have to face.

“I think it’s a real tribute to this facility that they went all that time keeping everybody healthy and it just shows you you have to be on your guard.”