Senior care facilities in Santa Rosa, Sonoma report coronavirus infections in residents, employees

Senior care facilities in Santa Rosa and Sonoma have reported positive coronavirus tests among residents and staffers, and a Forestville grocery store announced a similar finding for an employee.

Brookdale Paulin Creek, a senior living facility in Santa Rosa, said in a letter Saturday to residents and their families that two residents and three employees had tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. None of the five who tested positive have symptoms.

The letter from Maria Cortes, associate executive director, said that residents and employees had been tested regardless of whether they had symptoms of the disease that so far has infected 835 county residents, with about half that number recovered.

The letter did not say when the tests had been conducted.

Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase has highlighted senior care facilities, hubs of localized outbreaks around the country with populations susceptible to COVID-19, as an area of concern. She has highlighted the importance of regular testing for employees and residents of such facilities, a few of which have reported low numbers of positive tests.

The Brookdale Paulin Creek employees who tested positive will remain at home “until medically cleared to return,” the letter said, but said nothing about the situation for the residents.

“We will be reaching out to the family members of all residents,” the letter said.

“We believe that the best way to protect our community is to have a clear understanding of who has COVID-19,” it said.

Cortes did not respond to an email from The Press Democrat or a phone call to the facility seeking comment on Saturday.

Brookdale Paulin Creek is one of four Brookdale Senior Living facilities in Sonoma County, with three in Santa Rosa and one in Rohnert Park.

Brookdale Senior Living is a $4.1 billion company that operates more than 700 senior living communities with the ability to serve more than 65,000 residents, the company’s website says.

Separately, Broadway Villa Post Acute, a skilled nursing and therapeutic facility in Sonoma, said in an email Friday it had one resident and two staff members test positive for COVID-19.

The staffers had no symptoms and have been quarantined outside the building since their diagnosis, according to the message from Mike Empey, the executive director.

The facility has “initiated quarantine/isolation protocols” for the resident and is “carefully monitoring the situation” to maintain the resident’s health, his message said.

Empey said the pathogen most likely got into the facility “via an asymptomatic individual who is unaware that he or she is carrying the virus.”

Speers Market, a delicatessen and grocery store in Forestville, has acknowledged that one employee tested positive for COVID-19.

A notice apparently initialed by the owner on Wednesday said that all employees who have been in close contact with the infected person have been asked to self-quarantine pending ?follow-up action by the Sonoma County Health Department ?officials.

A person who answered the phone at the market Saturday told a reporter to call Sunday to speak with the owner and declined to give his full name.

The notice also said that all workers must check their temperature every day to ensure they are “healthy in all respects.” All employees were required to participate in coronavirus testing by county health officials on Thursday morning at the market.

The testing is not open to the public but is “part of ongoing contact investigation,” Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said on Facebook. The store is in Hopkins’ west county district.

Speers Market, which opened in 1931 during the Great Depression, is a Forestville neighborhood institution.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.