Eight dead; 49 recovered in coronavirus cluster at nursing home near Wichita
Eight people have died and 49 have recovered a month after a COVID-19 outbreak surfaced at a nursing home in the Wichita suburb of Clearwater, county officials announced Friday.
A total of 61 people were infected with the coronavirus in the cluster of cases at the Clearwater Nursing and Rehabilitation Center at 620 Wood.
“It’s just a tragic, tragic thing when it gets into a long-term care facility like this,” said Burt Ussery, mayor of Clearwater. “Everybody in town is aware of it and everybody in town is concerned about it.”
That single cluster is the largest concentration of coronavirus deaths in Sedgwick County, accounting for 44 percent of the county’s COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic came to the Wichita area in mid-March.
“We have continued to stress safety guidelines and it’s been contained at this point,” Ussery said. “We give our prayers every day to those who have been affected and that’s about all as a community we can do with respect to what has happened.”
Clearwater is about 16 miles southwest of downtown Wichita and seven miles outside the city limits.
As of Friday, 18 county residents have died from the disease, despite mass-gathering and stay-at-home restrictions that have slowed, but not stopped, the spread of COVID-19 in the area.
Some restrictions are still in effect, although most were relaxed Monday and thousands of businesses were allowed to reopen.
Sedgwick County has reported 457 cases of coronavirus; 265 have recovered.
In addition to the eight people who died in the Clearwater cluster, 47 residents of the nursing home and 14 facility staff tested positive for the coronavirus.
All residents of the nursing home were tested for the virus and only six didn’t catch it.
A check of federal Medicare inspection records by The Eagle showed a history of hygiene, staffing and infection-control issues, before and after the facility was purchase late last year by Manhattan-based Cornerstone Healthcare Solutions and its president and CEO, Willie Novotny.
Cornerstone owns several nursing homes, but its main business line is providing temporary staffing for hospitals and long-term care facilities throughout the state, Novotny said.
He said the problems cited in the Medicare reports were overstated.
Contributing: Chance Swaim of The Eagle
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 2:38 PM.
