GRAFTON, W.Va. — Taylor County Health Department officials are working to contain a third outbreak of Covid 19 cases within a local nursing home. Health officials say this outbreak at the Rosewood Center can be traced to another outbreak at a local church.
“That outbreak was tied to our West Hill church outbreaks. The initial care provider that is a contractor and goes into Rosewood, didn’t know it at the time, but had become positive through the West Hill Methodist Church outbreak. These two are definitely connected,” said Shawn Thorn, Public Information Officer for the Taylor-Grafton Health Department.
The West Virginia National Guard will arrive with a team on Wednesday to do preliminary work and begin the process of decontamination at Rosewood. As of Tuesday there were 29 residents who had tested positive along with six staff members.
“They have created an actual wing for all of the Covid positive residents. The staff members are hopefully at home isolating,” said Thorn.
There was some good news for Taylor County this week, the status of the county switched from “orange” to “yellow” on Tuesday’s color coded map produced daily by the DHHR and the Department of Education. The color map will be the guide and become more prevalent in the weeks ahead which dictates whether school can happen in person. It has already been used to dictate whether school based sports are allowed to practice. According to Thorn, that process has gone well in Grafton.
“School staff and health department staff have been checking into the practices to make sure they’re actually following the guidelines. We’ve had 100 percent compliance with all of that.” he said.
Thorn urged everybody to follow the recommended health guidelines and stay home if there’s not reason to go somewhere.
“If you can do something virtual like a church service, please do that. The folks in these nursing homes are the elderly population and once you have a death you realize just how real it can get in your county,” he said.