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Two Manor of the Plains employees test positive for COVID-19

With nearly 1 in 3 people in Ford County being positive for COVID-19, Manor of the Plains continues twice weekly surveillance testing of employees. Two employees have tested positive for COVID-19.

Both the Monday (November 9) and Wednesday (November 11) test results came in together last night (November 12) and throughout today (November 13) due to a routing issue with FedEx. All resident tests were negative for COVID-19, however, we have learned that two employees have tested positive for COVID-19.

One employee is a non-direct resident care employee who last worked November 12. The employee passed pre-shift screening and wore personal protective equipment as required. The other employee is an essential health care worker who has not worked in nearly a month and was testing to be able to return to work this weekend. Both employees will quarantine at home until cleared to return to work.

The next round of employee surveillance testing will be Monday, November 16. Residents will be tested Wednesday, November 18, with our second round of surveillance testing.

Since November 1, 6 employees have tested positive for COVID-19.

We have notified the Ford County Health Department and will continue with the infection prevention measures already in place.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has mandated surveillance testing of our staff. Surveillance testing requires all employees, agency employees, volunteers, hospice, lab and therapy providers at our campus to be tested on a frequency determined by our county’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate. Based on our county positivity rate for COVID-19 tests, our campus is testing staff twice a week.

We follow CDC and KDHE guidelines in determining when an employee may return to work.  Under the current CDC and KDHE guidelines, the employee may return to work when at least 72 hours have passed since resolution of the employee’s fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and the employee’s symptoms  have improved and at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. Upon the employee’s return to work, we will follow CDC recommendations related to work practices and restrictions.

Asymptomatic employees must quarantine for 14 days.

Employees are encouraged to follow CDC guidelines and best practices as these are continually updated. The community regularly reinforces with all employees that an employee should not report to work if he or she is experiencing symptoms of a respiratory illness or is not feeling well.

For more information about Manor of the Plains’ response, go to PMMA’s (Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America’s) website, presbyterianmanors.org/media-room.

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