VA Governor Targets Coronavirus Spread In Nursing Homes, Prisons

VIRGINIA — With nursing homes and long-term care facilities struggling to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has created task force to ensure these facilities have sufficient resources, including staff and personal protective equipment, to protect their residents, the governor said at a news briefing Friday.

The task force will be headed by Dr. Laurie Forlano, the deputy commissioner of population health at the Virginia Department of Health, and will be made up of members of the Northam administration and public health experts. The task force also will track data at long-term care facilities, including the number of deaths and outbreak trends.

"We're very committed that these facilities continue to get the funding they need and the supplies they need to protect the people that live there and to protect themselves and their staff," Forlano said at the news briefing. "We also want to ensure open communication between our local health departments and these facilities in a given area."

Out of the 82 outbreaks of the new coronavirus, or COVID-19, in Virginia, 45 of them have occurred at nursing homes and long-term care facilities, Forlano said. Ten percent, or 525, of the total number of reported positive cases of the coronavirus in Virginia are in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, she said.

At Friday's news briefing, Northam also said he has proposed an amendment to the state budget that would give the Virginia Department of Corrections the authority to release prisoners who have one year or less in their sentences and who have demonstrated good behavior and are viewed as not posing a threat to society.

The General Assembly, when it reconvenes on April 22, is expected to vote on the amendment. In the meantime, Northam has instructed the Department of Corrections to work on re-entry planning for the people who will be released from prison if the General Assembly passes the amendment. Fewer than 2,000 state prisoners have one year or less remaining in their sentences.

Given concerns about the coronavirus, the House of Delegates, when it reconvenes on April 22, is expected to meet outside under a tent and the state Senate is expected to meet at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond where the lawmakers are expected to have more space to practice social distancing.

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On Friday, the Virginia Department of Health reported that the number of deaths resulting from the coronavirus rose to 121, up from 109 on Thursday. Cases of the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19 illness, increased from 4,042 to 4,509. Virginia's positive cases include 772 hospitalizations, up from 685 on Thursday.

The state's highest number of deaths so far has occurred in central Virginia, with 44. In Virginia's northern region, where nearly half the positive cases of the coronavirus have been reported, there have been 40 reported deaths. The state's eastern region has reported 24 deaths, many of them in the Peninsula Health District.

Dr. Norman Oliver, state health commissioner, said Friday the Virginia Department of Health is preparing to start reporting deaths from the coronavirus by individual health district. Currently, the health department only reports deaths by the five regions of the state.

Northam said 13,000 people have signed up to volunteer for the Virginia Medical Reserve Corps, a group of volunteers who can support the state in the event of a public health emergency such as the coronavirus crisis. Half of the people who have signed up to volunteer have medical training.

Nurses, nurse practitioners and nursing students are encouraged to apply to be a part of the volunteer corps, Northam said. The medical corps also needs non-medical volunteers to handle activities such as logistics and communications. Members of the public who are interested in volunteering for the Medical Reserve Corps should visit www.vamrc.org.

Northam noted that Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond announced Thursday that it has developed a way to clean N95 masks that are in short supply in hospitals across the country. VCU is using ultraviolent radiation to decontaminate and clean masks so that they can be re-used.

"VCU is not the only hospital system or university to explore this method. But we're proud to have them innovating in this way right here in Virginia, " Northam said. "I hope other hospital systems will reach out to VCU for information on how to do the same thing. ... Being able to clean and re-use them could be a game-changer for our doctors, nurses and hospitals."

On Monday, the Northam administration plans to bring data specialists who are working on coronavirus models to Richmond to meet with the press and explain their modeling. The governor said his administration still has not set up a time and place where the data specialists will gather.

When asked at the news briefing why he might not be demonstrating the same amount of hope expressed by President Donald Trump during his daily news briefings, Northam said he wants to return to normalcy as quickly as possible. But he said government officials also must deal with reality.

"I'm a doctor. I understand the importance of keeping people healthy. So I'm looking at the data," he said. "I would always want to provide people with hope. Because once you take someone's hope away, you have taken away their will to live."

"But I'm also a big believer in telling the truth and letting people know what we're up against," Northam added. "This is a biological war that we're fighting here in this country. And we need to take it seriously. And we need to, as best we can, use the science and the data when we provide these guidelines."

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