Two more residents at the Marquis Hope Village Post-Acute Rehab facility in Canby have succumbed to complications of the novel coronavirus, bringing the total to nine.
April Diaz, vice president of clinical services and spokeswoman for Marquis Companies, which owns the facility, shared the “heartbreaking” news in an email to the Canby Now Podcast.
“Our Marquis at Hope Village team continues to work tirelessly to provide care and comfort as we support our residents through their COVID infections,” she said.
In addition, seven more staff members have tested positive for the virus, bringing the total number of cases linked to the Canby rehab center to 99. This number includes 33 residents and 43 employees, as well as 23 family members and other close contacts of staff (as of June 14), which are being tracked through the county’s contact tracing and reported by the Oregon Health Authority.
It is the state’s largest active outbreak at a long-term facility, and second-largest all-time behind only the infamous Foster Creek in southeast Portland, which was shut down last month after being linked to 120 cases and 34 deaths.
More positive results are possible, as the facility continues to retest negative staff and residents, to help ensure that the virus has not spread.
The sad news of the latest casualties means more than a quarter of the 33 residents who tested positive for the coronavirus have died since June 4, when the outbreak was confirmed.
Fortunately, for many of the other residents, who are more vulnerable to complications due to their age and medically fragile states, their conditions appear to be improving. Almost another quarter — seven residents — never developed symptoms at all, Diaz said.
“As we are approaching day 16 since our first resident tests were conducted, we are starting to see improvements in quite of few of our residents,” Diaz said. “We have seven residents who remain asymptomatic, some residents who previously had moderate symptoms are now mild, as well as a couple of critical residents that now have moderate symptoms.”
Diaz said the Canby senior care center has received an “outpouring of love” from the Canby community and the facility’s care partners, including a flood of flowers and gift baskets this week from Kindred Hospice, Home Instead Senior Care and 4th Quarter Farm in West Linn.
Several local restaurants have also done their part, including Odd Moe’s Pizza in Canby, who fed their entire staff on Saturday afternoon.
