COVID-19 Cases in Washington Long-Term Care Facilities Are Trending Down

Life Care Center in Kirkland back when everything was on fire (read: mid-March). Karen Ducey/ Getty Images

Of the more than 500 people who have died from COVID-19 in Washington state, 90 percent of them have been over the age of 60, according to the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS).

There are nearly 200 long-term care facilities in Washington that have reported at least one case of COVID-19. The virus struck these places quickly and violently. Statewide cases are “plateauing”—which is the word Gov. Jay Inslee has been using to describe Washington’s infection curve recently—but are the same trends evident in these vulnerable spaces?

Candy Goehring, the director of Residential Care Services in DSHS, said during a press conference on Friday that “overall we’ve seen a gradual decline” in newly reported cases.

Across the board, Goehring, who said she didn’t have the trend data in front of her, has witnessed that despite more facilities reporting cases “we are seeing fewer reports than we did a week ago.”

One strategy that Bill Moss, the assistant secretary in the aging and long-term support administration in DSHS, talked about to mitigate spread is to create “COVID-specific facilities” for “residents who have tested positive with the virus.” Moss said that it’s something DSHS “thinks is necessary” and “we’ll be getting there very soon.”

In order to really get this thing under control, mass testing needs to happen. There have been a few noted roadblocks to getting that accomplished, said Dr. Charissa Fotinos the deputy chief medical officer with Health Care Authority.

Mostly, these roadblocks boiled down to supply issues. Personal protective equipment—which is needed for anyone administering a test—was nowhere to be found, there was a scarcity of the actual swabs to administer tests nationally and internationally, and there was a shortage in “viral transport media” used to store the swabs. Those issues are getting solved “as PPE supply expands” and Washington companies produce some other swabs and transport media.

Currently, Washington labs have the capacity to do 14,000 tests daily. “The extraction material they need to run the tests has also been in short supply,” Fotinos said, “We’re asking labs if they perceive that to be a problem.”