Mercer County Nursing Home Coronavirus Cases, Deaths Released

MERCER COUNTY, NJ — Thirteen nursing care facilities in Mercer County have had at least one patient who died of complications from the new coronavirus, and 20 facilities have had more than 3 positive cases of the virus.

Those are some of the numbers revealed Monday when the state Department of Health released information on all nursing facilities in New Jersey who have reported at least one case of the coronavirus.

The listing comes after weeks of requests for the information and repeated warnings from the state to the owners and managers of long-term care facilities about their need to report that information to patients, employees and patients' families, Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said Monday.

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Long-term care facilities have been a point of concern in Mercer County since the earliest stages of the outbreak, as has been the potential spillover to the senior community at large. Mercer County has more than 367,000 residents of which 15.1 percent are seniors, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.

As of Monday afternoon, there have been 20 long-term and assisted living care facilities in Mercer County that have reported at least one case of coronavirus to the state. There are 419 cases of patients or staff at long-term care facilities who have tested positive for the virus, and 49, or just under 12 percent, of those patients have died, according to state figures. (You can see the list at the bottom of the article.)

Overall, there have been 2,591 people in Mercer County who tested positive; 122 of those, or 4.7 percent, have died, according to the state. Nursing home cases account for 16 percent of the people who have tested positive in Mercer County, and 40 percent of the deaths.

There were 88,806 people who have tested positive for the coronavirus across New Jersey as of Monday, and 4,377 of them have died, according to the state health department. Read more: NJ Coronavirus Updates: Here's What You Need To Know

"We're concerned about the vulnerability of our residents in long-term care facilities, and we have elevated our concerns and those of our constituents to the governor's office on this very serious matter. We will continue to keep state officials aware of what’s happening in Mercer County," said Mercer County Executive Brian M. Hughes.

Compliance requirements for long-term care facilities are done between the municipal health officer, the long-term facility and the NJ Department of Health, according to Michael Boonin, spokesman for Mercer County.

Here are the facilities in Mercer County that have patients positive for the coronavirus, along with deaths (in parentheses) that have happened at those facilities. The list of facilities was provided by the state Department of Health; there may be discrepancies due to a delay in communications between the facilites and the state:

• Water's Edge Healthcare and Rehabilitation
  Center, Trenton: 73 (9)
• Bear Creek Assisted Living, West Windsor: 37 (8)
• Hamilton Continuing Care, Hamilton: 36 (6)
• Clover Meadows Healthcare and Rehab Center, Lawrence: 25 (6)
• Mercerville Center, Hamilton: 48 (5)
• Greenwood House, Ewing: 25 (4)
• Princeton Care Center, Princeton: 14 (3)
• Preferred Care at Mercer, Ewing: 42 (2)
• Hamilton Grove, Hamilton: 16 (2)
• Meadow Lakes East Windsor, East Windsor: 16 (2)
• Artis Senior Living Princeton Junction, West Windsor: 19 (1)
• Atrium Post Acute Care in Hamilton, Hamilton: 11 (1)
• Providence Nursing and Rehab, Trenton: 21 (0)
• St. Lawrence Rehab Center, Lawrence: 12 (0)
• St. Josephs Morris Hall, Lawrence: 12 (0)
• CareOne Hamilton, Hamilton: 11 (0)
• Brandywine Living at Pennington, Pennington: 7 (0)
• Acorn Glen, Princeton: 7 (0)
• Rose Hill Assisted Living, Robbinsville: 4 (0)
• Homestead at Hamilton, Hamilton: 4 (0)

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