BCHD reports 37 cases, 4 deaths in Boone County long-term care facility

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The Boone County Health Dept. has reported a COVID-19 outbreak in a Boone County long-term-care facility resulting in 37 positive cases and four deaths.

Twenty-five residents and 12 staff contracted the disease within Signature Healthcare at Parkwood, a long-term care facility in Lebanon. A strike team from the Indiana Dept. of Health is providing support, testing and improved mitigation efforts in the facility, according to the BCHD.

Since the start of the pandemic, Signature Healthcare at Parkwood has reported 64 cases and nine deaths attributed to COVID-19, which includes cases and deaths from the new outbreak, according to the BCHD.

“On Oct. 7 was when we first started to hear that there was some activity (inside the facility) going on,” Haughton said. “We were keeping an eye on it, hoping it was just a freak thing where we were only going to see a couple of cases. But, unfortunately, we did start to see that increase, and we did start to see those deaths.”

The infections contributed to what was the county’s highest single-week total of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, BCHD Public Health Educator Claire Haughton said of the week ending Oct. 16. The health department reported 73 positive cases that week, up from the 66 cases the week prior and the 43 cases two weeks before that. The four COVID-19 deaths are the first in the county since late July.

The state also reported a record single-day total of 2,491 cases for the week ending Oct. 16.

Haughton said the record-highs underscore the importance of mitigation efforts as the holidays approach and people spend more time indoors as temperatures dip.

“People cans still enjoy trick-or-treating, Halloween, going out to eat, but the thing is, we really want them to do it safely and be as consciences as they can,” Haughton said. “We do want people to social distancing and maybe keep trick-or-treating groups to immediate family.”


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