The majority of residents at this San Antonio nursing home tested positive for coronavirus

The vast majority of residents at a San Antonio nursing home have now tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to city officials, who are now scrambling to track down staffers who worked at other facilities.

Sixty-seven of 84 total patients from the Southeast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center have now been infected, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg announced Friday morning. The 67 cases include one resident who died earlier this week.

The facility saw a spike in positive tests come to light Thursday, when Nirenberg announced 59 new cases. A day before, he announced eight residents had tested positive.

“In case anyone in San Antonio needed a wake-up call about the seriousness of COVID-19 to our community, this is it,” Nirenberg said during a news conference Friday morning. “COVID-19 is alarmingly contagious and very insidious.”

He added that San Antonio and Bexar County emergency response officials were “launching a multi-agency, multilayered, aggressive response” to the outbreak at the Southeast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, with an urgent focus on its staff.

The nursing home has 60 staffers, and eight have already tested positive and are in self-isolation at home, Nirenberg said. The city is moving to contact and test the remaining staffers.

“Of the eight staff members who are COVID-positive, we know that two of them worked in other facilities,” said San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood. “And the staff members who have not yet been tested — we know that they have worked in at least seven facilities in this city. That number is going to grow as we interview more staff members.”

Of those 52 remaining workers, Nirenberg said seven were tested Thursday, 17 are set to be tested today and the city is trying to reach 28 others. The city has dispatched teams to the seven facilities that Hood referenced to test patients and staff at each place who show symptoms.

To crack down on the potential spread of the virus by such staffers, Nirenberg said he was amending his public health emergency order to “prohibit nursing-home staff from working in multiple facilities.”

Hood said the city did not become aware that workers at Southeast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center shuttled between other facilities until his department started receiving an increase in calls from the location related to the coronavirus.

“There is a lack of uniformity with regulations related to nursing homes nationwide, and what we have determined is that — actually, though this process — that we have … people working in multiple facilities,” Nirenberg said. “When we discover that, we want to cut that loophole off immediately. But in terms of guidance for orders that prevent this kind of thing, there’s nothing nationally that we’ve been able to be guided by, so we’re gonna create hose safety valves here.”

Officials are also monitoring 17 patients who have not tested positive. Of those 17, 11 tested negative and are being kept in a separate part of the building and not sharing staff with the infected residents, Nirenberg said. The remaining six tests are pending or inconclusive.

The San Antonio Express-News reported Wednesday that the nursing home has a troubled history, including a citation last year for failing to maintain an infection control program.

“We have been undergoing … obviously a contact investigation,” Nirenberg said Thursday, referring to the practice of identifying and following up with those who have come in contact with infected people. “Right now we’ve obviously learned about previous inspections and violations, so I’m confident that those conversations and research will continue.”