An 84-year-old man who died July 4 at Avamere Rehabilitation in Newport tested posthumously for COVID-19 and is now the sixth resident of the facility to have died while testing positive for the virus.
Avamere and Lincoln County Public Health announced the death Friday, after getting the test results back from a laboratory. Some COVID-19 tests are taking more than two weeks to be processed.
Avamere administrator Dr. Robert Swinea said the resident had “serious medical issues” and had tested negative a few days before he died.
There has been a widespread outbreak among Avamere’s 33 residents and 52 employees since mid-June, and now six deaths in July. There are now 24 residents at Avamere.
Other deaths of Avamere residents who tested positive and died include: A 95-year-old woman who died Monday, July 13; a 91-year-old man who died Friday, July 10; a 99-year-old woman on Thursday, July 9; a 96-year-old woman on July 2; and, an 86-year-old woman on July 1.
Avamere accounts for six of Lincoln County’s eight COVID-19 related deaths.
Lincoln County Public Health officials have praised procedures at Avamere. Director Rebecca Austen said last week that the facility’s residents are “extremely vulnerable people” and that some who have died have not shown COVID-19 symptoms.
Swinea said in an email to YachatsNews that the residents who died “had multiple, serious underlying medical conditions.”
Avemere residents and staff are being tested for the coronavirus once a week and that inspectors from the Oregon Department of Human Services are visiting the facility twice a week. Lincoln County health officials check in daily. Residents who test positive are living in a separate wing of the facility and are handled by staff working only in that area.
A review of DHS inspection records in July by YachatsNews showed no problems with sanitation protocols and other procedures designed to limit coronavirus spread.
Avamere’s parent company is reporting all COVID-19 cases in all its properties on its website – an unusual procedure for the industry. As of Friday, Avamere said it had one active case among its Newport residents and that 18 had recovered, and that a single staff member was still quarantining, and that 15 had recovered.
