49 dead in 2 St. Tammany nursing homes, including Louisiana’s deadliest known outbreak

For nearly two months, Lambeth House in New Orleans and the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Home in Reserve have been the most vivid examples of the havoc coronavirus can wreak on a senior living facility, the grim tally of COVID-19 cases and deaths inside their walls splashed across websites, newspapers and TV screens.

Twenty-eight deaths have been recorded at the veterans home and as many as 23 at Lambeth House, figures that had seemed to be macabre outliers where the disease found a foothold. But other bleak examples have since come to light: 16 seniors have died at a home in Port Allen, and 13 at one in New Roads.

But it’s in St. Tammany Parish where the deadliest nursing home outbreak documented to date has now emerged. Forest Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation in Covington has had 29 residents die from COVID-19 since March 18, according to numbers provided by St. Tammany Parish Coroner Charles Preston.

And on the other side of the parish, in Slidell, Greenbriar Community Care Center has lost 20 residents to coronavirus.

Across St. Tammany Parish, 84 nursing home residents have died of COVID-19. That comprises nearly 60% of the parish’s 142 total coronavirus deaths, Preston said. Statewide, 863 nursing home residents had died of the virus as of Wednesday, around 37% of all coronavirus deaths in Louisiana.

Preston offered a view Thursday on why the toll in nursing homes has been so high. “It’s completely speculative, but I think it’s because they are a high-risk population and early on they weren’t up on the hierarchy list for (personal protective equipment),” he said.

Around the U.S., senior care facilities, where groups of especially vulnerable people live, often two to a room, have been hotbeds for transmission of the virus. Early on in the pandemic, public health efforts were focused on preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed by new patients, and nursing homes and other facilities at times struggled to acquire enough gear to protect staff and residents.

Preston couldn’t say why the two homes, which sit on opposite sides of the parish, had been particularly hard hit. No other St. Tammany Parish nursing home has had death totals in the double digits.

The 29 deaths at Forest Manor make it the deadliest known cluster of the disease in Louisiana since the pandemic began. Reached by phone Thursday, the home’s administrator, Clay Pere, said he would have to get back to a reporter, but never called back.

Jim Tucker, a former speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives and the CEO of CommCare Management Corp., which operates Greenbriar, said staffers believe the virus came in with an asymptomatic staff member and spread among the facility’s residents. An employee tested positive on March 19, and it wasn’t until March 30 that the first resident tested positive, CommCare spokeswoman Lisa Gardner said.

By then, the home was screening employees at the door, taking their temperature and asking them certain questions, but the virus eluded them, she said.

“PPE was in short supply,” Gardner said. The home also notified family members of residents in buildings where there had been an infection, Tucker said, and they stepped up their sanitizing procedures. But the disease has has claimed 20 residents, the last on May 4. The home still has 35 residents who have tested positive for coronavirus.

Tucker said he was hopeful that a new building, which could be opened next month and features a different layout, may help slow the infection rate. The nursing home has also begun procuring tests and next week will begin weekly testing for residents and workers in accordance with Louisiana Department of Health guidelines.

Greenbriar isn’t CommCare’s only COVID-19 hotspot: Old Jefferson Health Care, in Baton Rouge, has had 14 deaths from the virus, Tucker said. The Department of Health in March identified another of the company’s nursing homes, Guest House of Slidell, as a cluster of the disease. Four residents of the Guest House have died from the disease, Tucker said.

All residents at Guest House have since been moved to a new home the company is operating in Covington. That new home has a similar layout to the new Greenbriar building and since the move, there have been no new infections, Tucker said.

Across the country, the elderly have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic.

National estimates have put the death toll in senior-care facilities in the tens of thousands, and in Louisiana, officials have confirmed COVID-19 cases in more than two-thirds of the state’s 279 nursing homes.

The state’s first reported cluster of the disease was at Lambeth House, a sprawling upscale senior residential facility in Uptown New Orleans where, eventually, more than 50 residents tested positive and at least 21 died. Other clusters have since emerged, including at St. Joseph’s in Harahan, Chateau D’Ville in Donaldsonville and at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Home in Reserve, one of five state-operated homes for veterans.

Through most of March, the state reported the names of homes that had been designated clusters on a daily basis. But in late March, state officials decided to report only aggregate numbers of infections, deaths and homes with at least one case.

Earlier this month, the state said it would again begin to name adult residential facilities that had at least one resident who has tested positive beginning May 18. Federal authorities are also expected to begin naming nursing homes with cases in the coming weeks.

As of Wednesday, there were 3,840 confirmed cases in Louisiana nursing homes.