Universal and Serial Laboratory Testing for SARS-CoV-2 at a Long-Term Care Skilled Nursing Facility for Veterans — Los Angeles, California, 2020

Details

• Journal Article:
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Personal Author:
  Dora, Amy V. ; Winnett, Alexander ; Jatt, Lauren P. ; Davar, Kusha ; Watanabe, Mika ; Sohn, Linda ; Kern, Hannah S. ; Graber, Christopher J. ; Goetz, Matthew B.
• Description:
  On March 28, 2020, two residents of a long-term care skilled nursing facility (SNF) at the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (VAGLAHS) had positive test results for SARS-CoV-2, the cause of coronaVirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tTesting of nasopharyngeal specimens collected on March 26 and March 27. During March 29-April 23, all SNF residents, regardless of symptoms, underwent serial (approximately weekly) nasopharyngeal SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tTesting, and positive results were communicated to the county health department. All SNF clinical and nonclinical staff members were also screened for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR during March 29-April 10. Nineteen of 99 (19%) residents and eight of 136 (6%) staff members had positive test results for SARS-CoV-2 during March 28-April 10; no further resident cases were identified on subsequent tTesting on April 13, April 22, and April 23. Fourteen of the 19 residents with COVID-19 were asymptomatic at the time of tTesting. Among these residents, eight developed symptoms 1-5 days after specimen collection and were later classified as presymptomatic; one of these patients died. This report describes an outbreak of COVID-19 in an SNF, with case identification accomplished by implementing several rounds of RT-PCR tTesting, permitting rapid isolation of both symptomatic and asymptomatic residents with COVID-19. The outbreak was successfully contained following implementation of this strategy.
• Subjects:
  Aged Aged, 80 And Over BetacoronaVirus Clinical Laboratory Techniques CoronaVirus Infections COVID-19 Disease Outbreaks Female Full Report Humans Long-Term Care Male Pandemics Pneumonia, Viral Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction Skilled Nursing Facilities Veterans Veterans Health Services

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• Source:
  MMWR Morbidity Mortal Weekly Rep. 69(21):651-655
• Series:
  Weekly Report: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• ISSN:
  0149-2195 (print) ; 1545-861X (digital)
• Pubmed ID:
  32463809
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC7269604
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Los Angeles, CA
• Pages in Document:
  5 pdf pages
• Volume:
  69
• Issue:
  21
• Collection(s):
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:5803e7f7901a0f9cc1f1a6f30e37155b9c0b361d85778a6145d452b024cb20517cc7d1f430437ab377d65f84534eab186a141c064d8a9e14b4e02a78f959ac6a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/89098/cdc_89098_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 107.73 KB ]