Lutheran Home in Arlington Heights reports 14 residents, 4 employees with COVID-19
Fourteen residents of Lutheran Home recently tested positive for COVID-19, marking the first outbreak of the coronavirus within the Arlington Heights senior living community since the onset of the pandemic, officials said.
In addition, four employees have tested positive since April, while others have shown respiratory symptoms, according to updates on Lutheran Home's website.
The most recent report came Tuesday, when four residents of the home's advanced memory care unit tested positive for COVID-19 after they exhibited symptoms and were moved to a designated isolation unit.
Staff members tested the 14 other residents in that memory care wing and found nine to be positive and five negative, officials said.
A resident on the same floor but in a different advanced memory care wing also tested positive. Lutheran Home is now awaiting results after testing the 17 other residents in that wing, spokesman Rex Paisley said.
"At this point we are pursuing options with our local partners and (the Illinois Department of Public Health) for test kits with the intentions of greatly expanding the testing on our site," Paisley said of the prospect of testing all of Lutheran Home's 900 residents and employees.
In addition to memory care, the senior living community at 800 W. Oakton St. offers assisted living, short-term rehabilitation and traditional residential nursing care.
Until this week, there were no reports of residents with COVID-19 positive cases, Paisley said.
The senior home did report positive COVID-19 in four employees on its website on April 3, April 14, May 1 and May 2.
While three employees recently tested negative for the coronavirus, three others experienced new-onset respiratory symptoms in the last 72 hours and are not now at work, according to Lutheran Home's most recent online update, on Tuesday.
Paisley said there have been no COVID-19-related deaths at Lutheran Home.
The facility does not yet appear on the state health department's extensive online list that tracks COVID-19 cases at long-term care facilities. The database was last updated Friday and is updated weekly. But state officials caution that lag time and discrepancies are to be expected since facilities first report data to their local health departments, which in turn report to the state.