COVID-19 Daily Briefing: Governor, health commissioner discuss plan to assist long-term care facilities

During the state’s regular COVID-19 briefing Thursday, Gov. Tim Walz and state health officials discussed a new plan to assist long-term care facilities.

"It has been very clear from the beginning and now becoming an issue across the country the COVID-19 strikes the elderly much harder and those with underlying conditions," Walz said.

According to data from the Minnesota Department of Health, 407 of the 508 COVID-19 deaths in the state have been patients who resided in long-term care or assisted living facilities. According to MDH Commissioner Jan Malcolm, 330 facilities have confirmed cases.

"We are prepared to very much go on the offensive, and that is no small part because of what you have all done," Walz said. "You have provided important PPE (personal protective equipment) … you have provided the resources and the time to create the testing that will be a part of this strategy."

Malcolm introduced the five-step plan, which includes expanding testing for residents and workers of long-term care facilities, providing testing support and troubleshooting, providing personal protective equipment to facilities when needed, ensuring there is adequate staffing at facilities and leveraging partnerships with health systems and public health partners.

Follow KSTP’s complete COVID-19 coverage

The commissioner said the goal of the new strategy is to preserve hospital capacity by ensuring long-term care facilities can care for residents who don’t need to be in hospitals, reduce COVID-19 transmission among staff and residents and quickly identify facilities that need special support.

"The strategies that we are talking about here are certainly to protect residents but also the workers in these facilities," Malcolm said.

In regards to testing, Malcolm said the department is issuing new guidance on testing that includes consistent screening practices for residents and staff, expanding testing to all symptomatic residents and staff and providing facility-wide testing when a case is confirmed or numerous people are showing symptoms.

For testing support, the commissioner said MDH will continue to work with health systems to create strike teams that can immediately go and conduct tests in long-term care facilities. Support would also include working with the Testing Command Center to ensure that facilities have the testing equipment that is needed.

According to Malcolm, one of the most "vexing" parts of the plan is maintaining adequate staffing levels.

"We’ve been working really hard to try and help facilities when they hit crisis," Malcolm said.

In the new plan, the state is considering establishing a fund and contracts that will allow building staffing teams that can provide temporary staffing. To do so, Malcolm said the state will need to continue to push for funding both locally and federally.

Malcolm said the National Guard will also be activated to assist in the initiative.

In addition, the department will turn to incentives to encourage health systems and workers in those systems to provide staffing to facilities.

"This is a focused and detailed plan, now it needs to be operationalized," Malcolm said. "This is truly a statewide commitment well beyond what the state Department of Health can do on its own. We really need these partnerships with our health care systems partners, our public health partners, the long-term care industry itself and our friends at the State Emergency Operations Center."

‘Let’s not put each other at risk’

The governor also used the briefing as a chance to talk about the state’s fishing opener and Mother’s Day, both occurring over the weekend.

"This is something that literally hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans look forward to," Walz said.

However, Walz asked those who plan to get out for the two occasions to practice social distancing while doing so and to stay near home.

"Enjoy what Minnesota has to offer, but let’s not put each other at risk," Walz said.

Minnesota COVID-19 numbers

Thursday, the Minnesota Department of Health reported 786 new positive COVID-19 cases and 23 new deaths, pushing the state’s totals to 9,365 cases and 508 deaths.

According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the virus has infected about 3.7 million people worldwide and killed about 264,000. About 1.2 million people worldwide have recovered as of Thursday.