Nursing homes throughout the state have adopted strict restrictions - no visitors.

“When you enter a nursing home, you’ll be screen and asked a series of questions about being exposed to COVID,” said Dr. David Heisig.

But that doesn’t mean infection can be fully prevented.

“But we can’t guarantee that everyone is going to get through this because that’s the nature of a pandemic. You can pick this up in a store, in a community setting, that’s why the social distancing and the hand washing is so critical,” said Dr. Heisig.

According to Dr. David Heisig, the state Department of Health mandates that nursing care facilities like Loretto Health and Rehabilitation take in patients positive with COVID-19.

“So we do participate in health care delivery and so if a local hospital is finished taking care of a cover patient but they’re not yet cleared to go home they will be set to facilities that can care for those patients with ongoing care,” said Dr. Heisig.

Should facilities be able to put patients in separate wards and in isolation they will be taken. But not all nursing home facilities are built to do that.

Yet they still seem to be at risk for infection.

“In the community it’s not always possible to prevent infection. In the general community people are going to get sick, in nursing homes people are going to get sick. We can’t prevent infections. That’s the nature of a pandemic,” Dr. Heisig.

But there are still serious precautions taken.

“Use of masks, avoid unnecessary visits, keeping residents separate from one another, keeping families away,” said Heisig.