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FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

Tennessee Didn’t Alert Families to Nursing Home COVID-19 Case

Now, weeks later, it’s an outbreak with at least six people infected.

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Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP via Getty

By Tracy Connor

Tennessee officials say a resident at an East Memphis nursing home tested positive for coronavirus a few weeks ago—but they didn’t notify the families of the other vulnerable residents, the Commercial Appeal reported. Now it’s a full-on outbreak with six people, including one staff member, infected with COVID-19. Alisa Haushalter, director of the Shelby County Health Department, defended the decision to keep the initial case under wraps—even though it’s been shown that coronavirus sweeps through nursing facilities with speed and terrible consequences. “It was not an outbreak,” she said. “It was one single case.”

Read it at Commercial Appeal

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