Nursing home forced to delay COVID-19 vaccinations due to virus outbreak at facility

WOODSTOCK, Ga. — More than 100 seniors and dozens of employees infected with COVID-19 at a Woodstock nursing home have learned that the important vaccine is now being delayed getting to them.

An administrator from Woodstock Nursing and Rehabilitation told Channel 2′s Chris Jose that a corporate employee infected with the virus may be the cause of the outbreak at the home.

“One of our corporate people had been to another building that had COVID and responded to an emergency situation here at our building,” said Dianne Patterson with Woodstock Nursing & Rehabilitation.

She told Jose that a corporate employee tested positive for COVID-19 the week after Thanksgiving. Workers around him tested positive as well.

“It only takes one for it to spread like wildfire,” Patterson said.

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The nursing home says 108 residents and 36 staff members got infected this month. Employees are in home quarantine. Infected residents are in isolation.

Most are asymptomatic, including Angela Louise Oliver.

“My fear is that it’s going to be one of those stories where people are dying left and right. I’m petrified of a refrigerated truck coming,” Oliver’s daughter Lorelei Hoeye said.

Hoeye said she last saw her mother in person in July. They had to stay six feet apart.

“It sounds like now there’s only one hallway that’s not COVID patients in the whole building,” Hoeye said.

“Are you running out of quarantine space?” Jose asked Patterson.

“We have had to stop admissions. We do not have anywhere to put people,” Patterson said.

Patterson said her staff converted two hallways into COVID units. When those filled up, quarantine expanded to other parts of the building.

Due to the outbreak the nursing home has rescheduled its first round of vaccines.

First doses of COVID-19 vaccine arrive at Georgia senior homes Nursing homes have accounted for about 5% of COVID19 cases here in Georgia, but 37% of the deaths.

Cox Media Group