April 17, 2020 – Heartland Alliance has 500 staff working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis to provide health and care to some of our most vulnerable populations. Many of our staff are working in 24/7 residential programs and congregate living spaces, which are inevitably more susceptible to the rapid and wide spread of this virus. Similar spaces like colleges and universities were able to send their students home. There is no doubt that had they not done so, there would have been massive outbreaks of this virus in dorms across the country much like we are seeing in nursing homes, jails, homeless shelters and cruise ships.
The key to preventing the spread of this virus is access to testing, which is extremely limited throughout the country.
Heartland Alliance has aggressively tracked down and secured tests for our children and our staff – knowing full well that children are often asymptomatic and can spread the virus even more easily than others. And we are committed to ensuring access to testing for our staff, because it is imperative for their health and wellbeing, and that of their families and the larger community.
We finally got tests late last week for the children in our care, which at last gave us the opportunity to identify, isolate, quarantine and treat to lessen the spread. After receiving the results on 100% of the children in our shelters today, we can report that we have 42 confirmed positive participant cases across all of our shelters, including 33 children who were completely asymptomatic at the time of testing. All children are doing well and their prognosis is very good.
We have been encouraging our staff to access their medical providers for testing and, as we all know, it is hard to gain access to tests. We have fought hard to obtain test kits for our staff, and we are beginning to roll out voluntary testing through a third party health care provider. Testing will take place over a period of several days based on staff interest and schedules. Test results will be communicated by the provider directly to the individual employees. We recognize that information may be shared by others; however, we are obligated to protect the privacy of our staff on matters of their personal health and will not release staff results to the media.
Those on the frontline of this pandemic – working in hospitals, grocery stores, in public transportation, staffing group homes and more – are contracting COVID-19. Like all of them, we are seeing the downstream effects of this devastating virus.
It’s the lack of testing that is making this much, much worse. You cannot compare our shelters, where we fought to test ALL of our kids and staff, to other shelters that have only tested those showing symptoms. The facts are simple – by testing 100% of the population in a group setting, a higher number will be reported – BUT we are finally now able to identify all the positive cases (including the invisible, asymptomatic cases) and isolate the positive cases from the negative ones.
We have been following every recommended health and safety protocol for weeks – including taking daily temperatures, frequent handwashing and social distancing. When staff are sick with anything, they are sent home. And when anyone tests positive for COVID-19, we communicate with all with whom they have been in contact, and they too are put on quarantine.
The key to preventing the spread of this virus is access to testing so that we can contain and provide healthcare to those who are sick. That is what we are doing.
