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To ensure that there are sufficient hospital beds when the virus hits its apex in the coming weeks, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced that some vacant nursing homes will be used to house patients.
Lamont said that residents in at least 36 Connecticut nursing homes who tested positive for COVID-19 are being separated and isolated, where they can be monitored and kept separate from other residents who may be more vulnerable to the virus due to their age.
The plan calls for those who test negative or show no symptoms to be allowed to be transferred to other facilities where there are no COVID-19 patients.
Lamont said the plan would introduce hundreds of potential beds for those who test positive for the virus.
Reportedly, five of the nursing homes under consideration to house COVID-19 patients are Evergreen Health Care Center in Stafford Springs, Sharon Health Care Center in Sharon, Touchpoints of Farmington, Touchpoints of Bloomfield, and Greenwich Woods in Greenwich.
“We have a number of our nursing homes where people have tested positive,” Lamont said on Wednesday, April 1. “As you know, we were planning on closing some nursing homes in our last budget.”
“As you know, we were planning on closing some nursing homes in our last budget. At this point, that means there is a lot of extra capacity there. There are separate wings where can put people.
"There are empty nursing homes where we can put people. At least we can get them into separate quarantine areas. We can trace back and make sure everybody there they were in contact with is separately quarantined as well.”
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