Lane County Public Health was notified of a large COVID-19 outbreak at a memory care facility on the Oregon coast.
Nineteen residents with memory loss have contracted coronavirus at Spruce Point Memory Care in Florence. Six staff members have also tested positive via rapid antigen test.
Public Health spokesperson Jason Davis said they’re working with the facility to try to mitigate the spread. A vaccination team is on site to encourage unvaccinated staff to get the shot.
“We are concerned about the long term care facilities across the county- seeing as the people who live in those care facilities really are some of our most vulnerable community members,” he said. “And it’s incredibly important that the folks who work with those people are vaccinated and help protect them.”
Davis said this is the first major outbreak in months, since the Lane County surpassed a 50% overall vaccination rate. It will take about a week to learn if any cases in this outbreak were due to variants of the virus.
