Official: 46 COVID Cases Reported At Atlanta Nursing Home

Forty-six residents living in a long-term care facility in in Atlanta have recently tested positive for the coronavirus following an outbreak at the facility, according to a spokeswoman for a company that runs the home.

The outbreak happened at William Breman Jewish Home on Howell Mill Road, where 57 residents have now tested positive for the virus and 10 have died since the pandemic began, according to the state’s Health department. Three staff members also tested positive.

“It’s a nightmare,” Miriam Karp told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. Karp’s 91-year-old mother lives at the facility and was one of the residents who recently tested positive. “They had been doing well,” Karp said. “Why is this happening now, seven months later?”

The home, which currently has 60 residents, had reported a dozen coronavirus cases from March to May. But the virus spread through the facility this month, leading to a surge in cases.

“We hadn’t had a single resident case since that time until this new spike,” said Shari Bayer, a spokeswoman for Jewish HomeLife, the company that operates the facility.

Bayer told the newspaper that inspectors have not found deficiencies with virus safety procedures that have been implemented at the home, and the facility has pushed back on some COVID-related deaths from the home that they say were inaccurately included in the state’s early reports.

Those numbers have fluctuated over time, with the six new deaths being added this month, the newspaper reported.

Other long-term care facilities in the state have also been hit with outbreaks this month. But despite these outbreaks, October is on track to have the lowest number of infections and deaths at long-term care facilities in Georgia since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Tony Marshall, president of the Georgia Health Care Association.

More than 2,600 residents living in long-term care facilities in Georgia have died from the virus, and at least 15,300 have tested positive, according to the state.